Epic Games urged the Supreme Court to uphold a civil contempt ruling against Apple, defending judicial authority over app store payment restrictions.
The legal dispute between Epic and Apple traces back to 2020. Epic sued Apple after Fortnite was removed from the App Store following the remote activation of an alternative payment system that bypassed Apple’s In-App Purchase infrastructure, as 9to5Mac reported.
Although the federal court largely sided with Apple in the primary antitrust case, it issued an injunction ruling that Apple could no longer prevent developers from directing users to external payment methods outside the App Store. Apple ultimately permitted those links but imposed strict new hurdles. Those included a 27% commission on external purchases alongside rigid design rules controlling how developers could display buttons and links.
Epic challenged those operational hurdles. The lower court agreed that Apple violated the original injunction, holding the tech giant in civil contempt.
Apple appealed the contempt finding to the Supreme Court, arguing that courts must enforce the literal letter of an injunction rather than its broader spirit. The company maintained that because the original order contained no explicit prohibition against charging commissions on external web transactions or regulating link appearances, it should not face contempt.
Epic filed its official response disputing that interpretation, writing that Apple “attempts to avoid contempt by proposing an extreme legal standard.”
“[Apple] argues that a court can find contempt only if an injunction spells out the exact practice at issue–so an injunction barring Apple’s then-existing anti-steering rules left it free to implement new ones that prevent steering just as effectively. Nothing in this Court’s precedents supports that approach, which would reduce injunctions to a never-ending game of whack-a-mole.”
Epic stated in the filing that Apple devised a deliberate scheme to circumvent the court order. According to the document, Apple set the external commission rate at 27% knowing that when combined with third-party payment processing fees exceeding 3%, linked-out transactions would cost developers more than Apple’s native 30% In-App Purchase system.
As an Apple executive admitted, every “linked-out transaction is going to be more expensive to any developer * * * than an IAP transaction at 30 percent,” according to Epic’s filing. Epic added that Apple commissioned a “sham” economic report containing an “entirely manufactured” rationale for the 27% rate.
The filing also detailed allegations that Apple attempted to cover up its implementation strategy. Epic pointed out that Apple asserted legal privilege over more than 57,000 documents.
Epic highlighted a specific finding by Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers stating that an Apple Vice President of Finance “outright lied under oath” regarding when the company decided to establish the new commission structure.
Epic asked the Supreme Court to uphold the contempt ruling. Alternatively, the company requested that if the justices decide to clarify the governing legal standard for contempt, they send the case back to the lower courts for reconsideration under that standard.
With Epic’s response now filed, Apple has until December 14 to submit its final brief before oral arguments take place on January 11, 2027.
