A US federal judge has ruled that tech giant Apple willfully violated a 2021 court injunction meant to curb its anticompetitive practices, in a landmark in the ongoing legal battle between Apple and Epic Games, the company behind Fortnite.
According to CBS News, in a stern ruling issued on Wednesday, US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers found Apple in contempt of court for obstructing developers from directing users to alternative payment systems outside its App Store.
"Apple’s continued attempts to interfere with competition will not be tolerated," Gonzalez Rogers wrote.
She further ordered the company to cease hindering developers from sharing external purchase options and barred it from imposing new commissions on off-app transactions.
The original injunction stemmed from Epic’s 2020 antitrust lawsuit, which accused Apple of monopolising the mobile app ecosystem by forcing developers to use its proprietary payment system – one where Apple earned commissions of up to 30 percent.
While Gonzalez Rogers dismissed the monopoly claim, she mandated reforms that Apple, according to the court, failed to implement.
"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 anti-competitive option," the judge wrote.
She also accused Alex Roman, Apple’s vice president of finance, of "outright" lying under oath and said CEO Tim Cook overrode internal calls for compliance. "Cook chose poorly," she wrote.
Apple responded in a statement: "We strongly disagree with the decision. We will comply with the court’s order and we will appeal."
In addition to the fine, Apple will have to publish the decision on its website for seven days.
Apple faces mounting anti-trust lawsuits
The case may soon take on criminal dimensions, as Gonzalez Rogers has referred it to the US Attorney for the Northern District of California to consider possible contempt charges.
It comes amidst broader scrutiny from the Justice Department, which filed a sweeping antitrust lawsuit against Apple in 2024, accusing it of systematically suppressing competition.
In its first major enforcement under the new Digital Markets Act, the EU has fined Apple and Meta nearly $800 million for practices deemed anti-competitive, as Brussels moves to rein in the power of digital “gatekeepers” and boost consumer choices.
