A District Court in California has found that Apple willfully violated the court order in the Epic Games v. Apple suit.
Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers said:
“For the reasons set forth herein, the Court finds Apple in willful violation of this Court’s 2021 Injunction which issued to restrain and prohibit Apple’s anticompetitive conduct and anticompetitive pricing. Apple’s continued attempts to interfere with competition will not be tolerated,”
Epic’s lawsuit against Apple argued that the tech company acts as a monopoly, taking a 30% cut on all in-app purchases while banning outside payment methods.
“This is an injunction, not a negotiation. There are no do-overs once a party willfully disregards a court order,” the court documents continue.
“Time is of the essence. The Court will not tolerate further delays. As previously ordered, Apple will not impede competition. The Court enjoins Apple from implementing its new anticompetitive acts to avoid compliance with the Injunction. Effective immediately Apple will no longer impede developers’ ability to communicate with users nor will they levy or impose a new commission on off-app purchases.”
Rogers’ filing also said that Apple’s VP of Finance, Alex Roman, “outright lied” to the court under oath:
“In stark contrast to Apple’s initial in-court testimony, contemporaneous business documents reveal that Apple knew exactly what it was doing and at every turn chose the most anticompetitive option.”
She wrote that Apple Vice President of Finance Alex Roman “outright lied” to the court about when Apple had decided to levy a 27% fee on some purchases linked to its App Store.
“Neither Apple, nor its counsel, corrected the, now obvious, lies,” Rogers wrote, saying that she considers Apple to “to have adopted the lies and misrepresentations to this Court.”
Rogers added that she referred the matter to U.S. attorneys to investigate whether to pursue criminal contempt proceedings on both Roman and Apple.
Rogers also accuses Apple of withholding documentation of a June 2023 meeting including CEO Tim Cook about how they would comply with the 2021 court order. Rogers said that Apple hid the existence of the meeting from the court until 2025. She also said that Apple abused privilege in order not to share documents that it was supposed to.
An Apple spokesperson stated:
“We strongly disagree with the decision. We will comply with the court’s order and we will appeal.”
Epic Games founder and CEO Tim Sweeney responded to the court’s findings in a series of posts on X.
“NO FEES on web transactions. Game over for the Apple Tax. Apple’s 15-30% junk fees are now just as dead here in the United States of America as they are in Europe under the Digital Markets Act. Unlawful here, unlawful there,” he wrote.
