Abstract:
As the U.S. Supreme Court is about to hear the six-year-old antitrust lawsuit between Apple and Epic Games in October this year, a number of government representatives, business giants and legal think tanks, including the U.S. Deputy Attorney General, the Washington Legal Foundation (WLF), the Chamber of Commerce, the Chamber of Progress, and the International Center for Law and Economics (ICLE), have submitted "amicus" to the Supreme Court. Briefs), expressing high support for Apple’s core appeal claims.
The lawsuit began in 2020 when Epic Games deliberately violated App Store rules, and then evolved into a legal tug-of-war that lasted for several years. Although Apple won the majority of its claims in early trials, the court issued an injunction against anti-steering, requiring Apple to allow developers to inform users of external payment channels. Apple subsequently adjusted its policy to allow developers to add external links, but at the same time charged a 27% commission for transactions completed through external links. The move led lower courts and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to find that Apple violated the "spirit of the injunction" and held that Apple was in civil contempt.
Deputy Attorney General John Sauer, who represented the U.S. federal government before the Supreme Court, clearly pointed out in his brief that according to the Supreme Court's past precedent standards, a party can only be judged to be in civil contempt if there is "no fair ground of doubt." However, in the Apple case, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Apple was in contempt of court simply because it violated the "spirit of the injunction." This logic has obvious legal flaws. The brief further emphasized that given that the original injunction text did not explicitly prohibit Apple from charging a 27% commission, there was obviously reasonable doubt as to whether Apple's actions constituted a violation, and the lower court's civil contempt ruling lacked sufficient legal basis. However, the brief also pointed out that the lower court's concerns about some of Apple's previous specific interface design restrictions (such as distinguishing between "buttons" and "links") were somewhat reasonable.
In addition, business organizations such as the Washington Legal Foundation and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce warned in their briefings that if courts are allowed to identify corporate violations based on the vague "spirit of the prohibition" rather than clear textual terms, it will undermine the legal certainty of the entire business environment and make it difficult for companies to assess their own compliance boundaries. The International Center for Law and Economics (ICLE) pointed out from the perspective of competition law that the core intention of the ban is to eliminate information asymmetry. As long as Apple allows developers to display external payment options to users within the app, it has achieved the purpose of eliminating information barriers; the ban itself does not deprive Apple of its commercial right to charge reasonable commissions to developers who use its platform services.
Legal experts pointed out that the concentration of these high-profile "friends of the court" briefs has added important leverage to Apple's appeal in the Supreme Court. If the Supreme Court adopts these views and rules that the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals cannot determine violations based on the "spirit of the injunction," it will not only mean that the civil contempt ruling against Apple will be completely revoked, but it will also draw a clearer legal boundary for the commercial interests of global digital platforms and app developers.
Comments