Epic Games Wins Landmark Ruling, Judge Says Apple VP ‘Outright Lied’ Orders End to App Store Monopoly

Key Takeaways

• In 2021, Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers ordered Apple to let app developers direct customers to off-app payment channels.
• However, in a new ruling, Rogers found that Apple failed to comply with her original injunction.
• Moreover, she accused the company and its VP of Finance, Alex Roman, of lying to cover up its non-compliance.

Nearly four years after a court ordered Apple to let app developers inform users about third-party payment mechanisms as a result of Epic Games’ lawsuit, Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers has found that the Big Tech giant failed to comply with her injunction.

The verdict marks an important victory for Epic, which has spent years battling Apple and Google in court to try and open up their respective app stores.

Apple vs. Epic Games Background

Epic’s long-running battle with Apple and Google can be traced back to 2020, when the game developer introduced an alternative payment system in Fortnite to bypass the fees charged by App Store and Google Play.

After both Big Tech giants removed the game from their platforms, Epic sued, accusing them of anti-competitive practices and monopolistic control over app distribution.

Generally speaking, the lawsuit against Google was more successful, forcing major changes to Google Play’s terms of service for developers.

However, although Judge Rogers ruled in Apple’s favor in nine out of ten counts, Epic did win one crucial concession.

In her original ruling, Rogers found that Apple’s “anti-steering provisions” that ban app developers from directing users to alternative payment channels unfairly suppressed competition.

She therefore ordered the company to modify App Store anti-steering provisions so developers could promote alternative, often cheaper, ways to purchase or subscribe to app content.

Apple Continued To Suppress Third-Party Payments

In the wake of Judge Rogers’ original ruling, Apple changed its policy so that app developers could link to external payment options.

However, in place of anti-steering provisions, the firm started to collect a 27% commission from off-app purchases.

In her latest ruling , Judge Rogers found that the new policy violates the spirit of her original order, which was ultimately about freeing developers from App Store fees.

“Apple rewrote those policies by choosing a different anticompetitive path (that was more expensive for developers) with full knowledge of what it was doing,” she wrote.

Rather than opening up the market for app payments, she accused Apple of constructing “a program that nullified the revenue impact of the Injunction by prohibiting any viable alternative.”

Alex Roman Accused of Lying Under Oath

When Judge Rogers pressed Apple executives about the new policy in 2024, the company allegedly tried to cover up its efforts to thwart the original injunction’s goals.

Rogers claimed that Vice-President of Finance Alex Roman “outright lied” about how the changes were decided and implemented.

Going forward, the court has referred the matter to U.S. attorneys to investigate whether criminal contempt proceedings are appropriate.

In a scathing rebuttal of the company’s actions, Rogers wrote: “This is an injunction, not a negotiation. There are no do-overs once a party willfully disregards a court order.”

“Effective immediately Apple will no longer impede developers’ ability to communicate with users nor will they levy or impose a new commission on off-app purchases,” she added.