Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney ain’t quite there yet with getting all he wanted in his battle over iOS app store payments, but he just scored a big win as a US court calls out Apple for breaking a 2021 injunction. The court even went so far as to refer one Apple exec’s behavior to the criminal prosecutors. When Epic first kicked off its feud with Apple, the goal was to use its own payment system in Fortnite on iOS, dodging Apple’s hefty 30% fee. While Epic lost that round in a 2021 trial, the US courts did rule in its favor on one point: Apple couldn’t block iOS app developers from sending users to external websites with their own payment processors.
Since then, Sweeney has been griping that Apple hasn’t really been following the court’s orders, and after digging into the evidence, the court is firmly on Sweeney’s side. In today’s order from Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, she calls out Apple’s response to the injunction as just not believable. The judge states, “Apple, despite knowing its obligations thereunder, thwarted the Injunction’s goals, and continued its anticompetitive conduct solely to maintain its revenue stream.”
Apple’s response to the court order is a hard pass, with an Apple spokesperson telling PC Gamer, “We strongly disagree with the decision. We will comply with the court’s order and we will appeal.” Instead of simply allowing developers to link to external payment systems in response to the original injunction, Apple slapped on a 27% commission on those external payments. Apple also added screens that seemed to scare users away from external purchases, a move that Sweeney has also called out in relation to Apple’s compliance with a related European law.
Epic wasn’t convinced Apple was playing fair with the injunction, leading to an evidentiary hearing in 2024 to dive into the matter. According to today’s order, the court got suspicious that Apple wasn’t being completely honest about how it settled on that 27% fee, prompting the court to demand documents related to its compliance planning. After some stalling, a second hearing went down earlier this year, and the court wasn’t impressed with what it saw.
“Remarkably, Apple believed that this Court would not see through its obvious cover-up” in 2024’s hearing, the district judge wrote, who also mentioned that Apple VP of finance Alex Roman “outright lied under oath”—a matter she has passed on to the US attorney’s office to look into potential criminal contempt charges. Roman’s testimony was “replete with misdirection and outright lies,” said the judge. For example, he claimed that Apple didn’t consider the external payment processing costs developers would incur when setting the 27% commission for external purchases. Evidence revealed that Apple was aware of those costs, “which conveniently exceeded the 3% discount Apple ultimately decided to provide by a safe margin.”
And the fee itself was a violation of the injunction in the first place. The evidence showed that Apple executive Phil Schiller understood this and opposed the fee, but “Tim Cook ignored Schiller and instead allowed Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri and his finance team to convince him otherwise.” “Cook chose poorly,” wrote the judge.
After today’s order, Apple won’t have any more wiggle room unless it succeeds in an appeal, and there will be no more fees for external iOS purchases, not just for Epic, but for any developer. “This is an injunction, not a negotiation,” reads the order. “There are no do-overs once a party willfully disregards a court order. 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.”
Sweeney is still waiting on the ability to include his own payment processor in the app directly, but that’s not on the table in the US since the original 2021 ruling. After this win, he’s ready to make peace. “We will return Fortnite to the US iOS App Store next week,” Sweeney tweeted. “Epic puts forth a peace proposal: If Apple extends the court’s friction-free, Apple-tax-free framework worldwide, we’ll return Fortnite to the App Store worldwide and drop current and future litigation on the topic.”
Tyler grew up in Silicon Valley in the ’80s and ’90s, playing games like Zork and Arkanoid on early PCs. He was captivated by Myst, SimCity, Civilization, Command & Conquer, all the shooters they call “boomer shooters” now, and PS1 classic Bushido Blade (that’s right: he had Bleem!). Tyler joined PC Gamer in 2011, and today he focuses on the site’s news coverage. His hobbies include amateur boxing and adding to his 1,200-plus hours in Rocket League.
