• Northern District Of California Finds Willful Violation Of Injunction By Apple, Orders Enforcement and Refers Matter For Criminal Contempt

  05/08/2025

  On April 30, 2025, Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California granted a motion by Epic Games, Inc. to enforce a 2021 injunction against Apple Inc., finding that a senior Apple executive submitted false testimony and Apple willfully violated the order designed to prevent anticompetitive conduct and pricing practices in the iOS app marketplace. Epic Games, Inc. v. Apple Inc., No. 4:20-cv-05640, slip op. (N.D. Cal. Apr. 30, 2025), ECF No. 1508. The Court denied Apple’s motions to set aside the judgment and referred the willful violation and discovery conduct to the United States Attorney for potential criminal contempt proceedings.

  Following a bench trial in 2021, this Court issued a 180-page order and permanent injunction enjoining Apple from impeding competition with respect to in-app and out-of-app purchases, specifically targeting Apple’s anti-steering provisions under the California Unfair Competition Law. The Ninth Circuit affirmed the injunction in April 2023, and the Supreme Court denied review in January 2024, at which point the injunction became effective.

  In response to the injunction, Apple implemented a new compliance program, including:

  • Imposing a 27% commission on purchases made via external links, where previously no commission was charged for such transactions;
  • Restricting the placement and design of external purchase links, including prohibiting their appearance in the in-app purchase flow and limiting them to a single, non-prominent location per app;
  • Deploying a full-screen “scare screen” warning to users leaving the app for external purchases;
  • Excluding certain developers (e.g., those in Apple’s Video Partner and News Partner Programs) from participating in the external link program.

  The Court found, after extensive evidentiary hearings and review of internal Apple documents, that Apple’s compliance efforts were designed to maintain its anticompetitive revenue stream and to thwart the injunction’s pro-competitive objectives. Apple willfully chose not to comply with this court’s injunction, Judge Rogers said. “It did so with the express intent to create new anticompetitive barriers which would, by design and in effect, maintain a valued revenue stream; a revenue stream previously found to be anticompetitive.”

  Given the findings that Apple’s violations were willful and that a senior Apple executive had submitted false testimony, the Court referred the matter to the United States Attorney for the Northern District of California for investigation into potential criminal contempt. Furthermore, the Court sanctioned Apple for its discovery conduct, ordering payment of the full cost of special master review and Epic’s attorneys’ fees related to privilege disputes.

  The Court permanently enjoined Apple, effective immediately, from:

  1. Imposing any commission or fee on purchases made outside an app;
  2. Restricting or conditioning the style, language, formatting, quantity, flow, or placement of external purchase links;
  3. Prohibiting or limiting the use of buttons or calls to action for external purchases;
  4. Excluding categories of apps or developers from link access;
  5. Interfering with consumer choice through non-neutral warnings;
  6. Restricting the use of dynamic links for external purchases.
  Categories: Civil and Criminal Contempt, Permanent Injunction, State Antitrust and Competition Law
  

Links & Downloads

• Epic Games, Inc. v. Apple Inc.