Judge finds Apple violated antitrust ruling in long-running case with Fortnite developers

Apple was harshly challenged by a federal judge who accused it of willfully violating an injunction from her court in the context of its long-running antitrust legal dispute with Epic Games, the company that developed the Fortnite video game. The ruling holds that the company, maker of the iPhone, breached a previous ruling that required it to relax the payment terms of its App Store.

"Apple willfully chose not to comply with this court’s injunction," Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers wrote in a ruling issued Wednesday.

Notably, the judge directly rebuked CEO Tim Cook and alleged that another top company executive, Vice President of Finance Alex Roman, "outright lied under oath." 

“It did so with the express intent to create new anticompetitive barriers,” the judge insisted.

Judge Gonzalez Rogers not only accused Apple of deliberately acting to maintain its anticompetitive practices within its App Store but also took an unusual step that, in turn, caused the company's stock to fall slightly Wednesday: she referred the case to federal prosecutors to consider opening a criminal contempt investigation.

The legal dispute dates back to 2021, when Epic Games sued Apple for monopolistic practices.

At that time, although the judge ruled mostly in Apple's favor, the company was ordered to allow developers to offer alternative payment methods outside of the App Store, which would break the 30% fee Apple charges for each transaction within the platform.

Apple, however, responded with a new 27% fee for purchases made through other methods, which was interpreted by the judge as a way to block effective enforcement of the ruling.

In her order, Judge Gonzalez Rogers stated that these maneuvers “thwarted the injunction’s goals and continued [Apple’s] anticompetitive conduct solely to maintain its revenue stream.”

Tim Sweeney, CEO of Epic Games, celebrated the court ruling, which comes at a key moment, with developers demanding greater freedom to operate outside the ecosystem imposed by the company.

“It’s a huge victory for developers," Sweeney said.