Apple has achieved another stage victory in its time game: The US Supreme Court (SCOTUS) is accepting a partial aspect of the Epic v Apple complex for review. Basically, the legal dispute, which has been going on for almost six years, is about anti-competitive practices in Apple’s App Store for iOS and iPadOS. The portion adopted by SCOTUS is that Apple has circumvented the spirit of a federal district court decision by charging prohibitive fees to app providers and imposing other adverse requirements.
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The federal district court for Northern California classified this as contempt of court, which was also confirmed by the responsible federal appeals court. But Apple argues that contempt is only possible by circumventing very specific court orders, not by circumventing the basic tenor of a court decision. With this argument, the company has piqued the interest of at least four of the nine SCOTUS judges. They have decided to look into the matter.
Delay, Deny, Defend
This gives Apple more time and can continue its business practices. The earliest date for the oral hearing would be October; It could take a whole year for the decision to be made. And then the matter may go back to a lower court.
Apple has always charged high fees in its App Store for iOS and iPadOS, typically 30 percent of all customer payments. At the same time, Apple prohibited sales outside the App Store, direct communication with customers via other channels, and the operation of alternative app stores for Apple’s mobile operating systems. When Epic Games tried to bypass Apple’s expensive payment system in its game Fortnite, Apple blocked Fortnite.
Epic then moved to the US Federal District Court for Northern California in August 2020. This decided in September 2021 that Apple’s regulations did not violate federal monopoly law, but did violate a California law against unfair competition. The court ordered Apple to allow hyperlinks from apps to external websites with independent payment systems.
Apple appealed unsuccessfully and was unable to persuade the Supreme Court to review the case further. Finally, the group vowed to adhere to the legally binding requirements.
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Extreme fees and other traps
In fact, Apple designed its new system in such a way that no one would use it: only a single hyperlink is allowed, which must not be recognizable as such. The page accessed may not contain any information about the customer or his account, but must query this again. There are also discouraging displays and a fee of 27 percent of all sales. Because operating an external payment system also costs something and financial service providers charge fees, sales outside the App Store would be even more expensive than the 30 percent directly in the App Store.
The matter was therefore prohibitive, which, as it later turned out in court, was intentional. In addition, Apple generally excluded all participants in its Video Partner Program and its News Partner Program from external sales. There is no apparent factual basis for this.
Epic had to go back to federal district court. This examined Apple’s actions in detail and heard witnesses several times until it finally decided on contempt of court. Apple’s argument that the original court decision did not specifically prohibit the measures taken did not hold water.
Contempt of court
This time, the district court issued more detailed requirements, including an absolute ban on fees for sales generated outside the App Store – not only against Epic, but against all app providers in the US App Store. Apple appealed again. At the end of 2025 (ref. 25-2935), the Federal Court of Appeal found that parts of the new requirements were too strict: For example, Apple was allowed to charge fees for external sales, just not at a prohibitive level.
In principle, however, the district court admissibly determined that Apple had disregarded the court through its actions. Apple violated two court conditions in letter and two more in spirit.
1 of 2 topics is being negotiated
Against this decision of the Federal Court of Appeal, Apple appealed to the Supreme Court and proposed two questions for discussion: Firstly, whether contempt of court can actually exist if a decision is only circumvented in spirit and not in letter. The Supreme Court accepted this question on Tuesday.
Secondly, Apple wanted to discuss whether the Federal District Court could issue nationwide bans based on the law of a US state, which also affect people who are not involved in the proceedings (here: all providers of apps in the App Store). The Supreme Court did not accept this question. It generally does not justify its decisions about acceptance or non-acceptance.
The procedure before the Supreme Court is called Apple v Epic Games and bears the number 25-1311. The U.S. District Court for the Ninth U.S. Circuit is in charge Epic Games v Apple under the numbers 21-16506 and 21-16695, while the Federal District Court Epic Games v Apple filed under 4:20-cv05640.
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