The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected an emergency request from Apple, refusing to temporarily suspend an earlier ruling that Apple violated a court order and constituted "civil contempt" in an antitrust lawsuit filed by Epic Games, the developer of the game "Fortnite".
Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan, who heard the petition, made the decision on behalf of the court, upholding the San Francisco-based Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals' original ruling that Apple was found in contempt in the Epic case. Apple originally hoped to buy itself more time through the temporary intervention of the Supreme Court and prepare to launch a comprehensive appeal against the relevant judgment of the Ninth Circuit Court.
Apple and Epic have been locked in a years-long dispute over App Store rules, with the latest contempt ruling and the scope of Apple's obligations under a court order becoming one of the latest issues in the tug-of-war to reach the Supreme Court. Apple said in a Supreme Court filing that the Ninth Circuit's decision will affect "the way millions of in-app purchases are transacted."
As early as 2020, Epic filed a lawsuit accusing Apple of exercising excessive control over app distribution and payment methods through its App Store rules on the iOS operating system, restricting developers from turning users to third-party payment channels, and charging high commissions from them. In the judgment issued in 2021, although the district court supported Apple on most substantive antitrust charges, it also issued an injunction requiring Apple to allow developers to add links to apps to guide users to use non-Apple channels to complete payments.
In response to the ban, Apple began to allow external links to be placed within apps in accordance with regulations, but at the same time introduced a new set of restrictions, including: charging developers a 27% commission for purchases completed through third-party payment systems within 7 days after users click on external links. Although this reduced ratio is lower than the 30% commission charged by Apple for direct payment within the App Store, it has triggered strong dissatisfaction from Epic. Epic pointed out that this new regulation essentially goes against the original intention of the court to lift the Apple Pay monopoly, and is just another way to continue to profit from developers and consumers.
In 2025, U.S. District Court Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers found that Apple was in civil contempt for failing to comply with the substantive requirements of the 2021 injunction. Then in December of the same year, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the "contempt" finding, but at the same time allowed Apple to continue to make new arguments during the appeal process about what commission rate it can charge for third-party payment channel transactions. Apple has always denied violating the judge's order and argued that the relevant ban should not be mechanically applied to "millions of developers" outside of Epic, believing that the court's original order was wrongly expanded in scope of application.
In the materials submitted to the Supreme Court, Apple also emphasized that regulatory agencies in many countries around the world are paying close attention to the direction of this case to determine what commission rate Apple can charge for transactions covered by the order in the huge market outside the United States. From Apple's perspective, this is not only a commercial dispute with Epic, but may also become an important reference for regulatory agencies in various countries to formulate platform commission regulatory frameworks.
Epic said in its opinion submitted to the Supreme Court that Apple should not be allowed to use procedural delays to circumvent the execution of the injunction issued by the district court earlier. The company believes that once the execution of the existing ruling is suspended, it will be tantamount to giving Apple "extra time to continue unfairly profiting from the interests of consumers and developers."
Apple's position in the long-running App Store antitrust dispute has become even more passive as the Supreme Court declined to "stay" a lower court's contempt ruling. Next, key issues such as what level of commission Apple can charge for digital goods transactions completed through third-party payment channels and how the scope of the ban should be delineated will still be gradually clarified through subsequent appeals and hearing procedures. The results will not only affect both Apple and Epic, but may also set a sample for commission rules in the global digital platform economy.
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