The Supreme Court of the United States has officially scheduled oral argument dates in Apple Inc.'s landmark appeal challenging a federal civil contempt ruling stemming from its antitrust battle with Epic Games Inc. At the same time, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California has rejected Apple's bid to stay lower-court proceedings, pressing forward with factual evaluations over what commission rate, if any, the Cupertino technology giant may legally impose on external app purchases. Entering its fifth year of litigation, the dispute between the two companies is now advancing along parallel judicial tracks before the nation's highest tribunal and federal trial judges.
Judge Gonzalez Rogers found Apple in civil contempt over 27% fee
The clash traces back to a nationwide antitrust injunction issued in September 2021 by U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers in Oakland, California. While Judge Gonzalez Rogers ruled in Apple's favor on nine of ten counts and rejected federal Sherman Act monopolization claims, the court concluded that Apple's anti-steering rules violated California's Unfair Competition Law. The judge permanently enjoined Apple from prohibiting app developers from including external links, buttons, or other calls to action directing users to third-party purchasing mechanisms outside the proprietary App Store payment pipeline. Following the Supreme Court's refusal to hear appeals on January 16, 2024, the injunction took formal legal effect.
Apple's compliance framework sparked immediate legal conflict. Under revised App Store rules, Apple permitted developers to include external links but imposed a 27% commission fee on digital purchases completed off-platform, while mandating multi-step security warning screens for departing consumers. Epic Games moved to enforce the injunction, arguing that the 27% fee rendered external processing economically unfeasible and constituted bad-faith evasion. Following comprehensive evidentiary proceedings, Judge Gonzalez Rogers issued an 80-page decision on April 30, 2025, holding Apple in willful civil contempt.
In her contempt order, Judge Gonzalez Rogers concluded: "After two sets of evidentiary hearings, the truth emerged. Apple, despite knowing its obligations thereunder, thwarted the injunction's goals, and continued its anticompetitive conduct solely to maintain its revenue stream. Remarkably, Apple believed that this court would not see through its obvious cover-up." The district court barred Apple from levying any commission on linked-out transactions and formally referred the company and Vice President of Finance Alex Roman to the U.S. Attorney's Office for potential criminal contempt proceedings.
Ninth Circuit affirmed contempt but overturned zero-commission ban
Apple appealed the sanction to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. On December 11, 2025, a three-judge appellate panel unanimously affirmed the trial court's underlying civil contempt determination, agreeing that Apple's 27% fee was "large enough that no rational developer would offer them." However, the Ninth Circuit overturned the blanket zero-commission ban as overbroad and punitive, remanding the matter back to Judge Gonzalez Rogers to calculate a reasonable, cost-justified fee structure.
Apple subsequently petitioned the Supreme Court, which granted certiorari in June 2026. The high court explicitly confined its review strictly to the civil contempt issue: whether a litigant can be held in contempt for violating the overarching spirit or purpose of a court order when its precise literal terms did not expressly ban the specific conduct. The substantive economic determination of permissible external commission rates remained remanded before the district court.
During proceedings in Oakland, Apple defense counsel James Rouhandeh urged the court to pause evidentiary hearings or modify the injunction pending the Supreme Court's verdict. Judge Gonzalez Rogers firmly denied Apple's stay motion.
Judge Gonzalez Rogers denies Apple stay and cites five-year delay
"I am not persuaded by your arguments," Judge Gonzalez Rogers stated during the hearing. "We are going to move on. We are coming up on five years, and Apple has acted in many ways to delay, delay, delay."
Addressing defense claims regarding judicial economy, the judge noted: "It can't be about the conservation of judicial resources because I need to understand the factual issues." Judge Gonzalez Rogers emphasized that internal corporate documents and executive depositions demonstrated that internal advisers had initially recommended charging no commission on linked-out transactions. "That was recommended to Mr. Cook," Rogers said, referring to Apple Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook. "He refused to accept that; now we have to figure out what that is, based on the actual records." With oral arguments approaching at the Supreme Court and district court hearings underway, the high-stakes showdown continues to reshape the global economics of mobile software platforms.
