Apple makes great devices, like them or not. However, the company has some serious authoritarian tendencies that are hard to support and it has been fun seeing courts around the world break their iron fist.
Last year we talked about the EU forcing Apple to enable users to download apps from different app stores and to allow developers to utilise their own payment systems, thus avoiding Apple’s fees.
In typical Apple fashion, they complied with the directive in the most malicious way possible.
Apple introduced measures like a €0.50 “Core Technology Fee” per user after the first million installs and a 27% commission on external payments, effectively maintaining its revenue streams.
Developers were mad mad and said they would be regrouping to take it back to the regulators.
Apple was not just doing this in the EU. In their home country, they had to contend with an Epic Games lawsuit that also alleged they were abusing their monopoly power.
A ruling was made and Apple was forced to loosen its grip much like in the EU. Apple again complied in a creatively malicious way. This time around it appears they overplayed their hand.
The Defeat Heard Around the World
Apple suffered a major legal blow after a U.S. federal judge ruled that the company deliberately failed to comply with a 2021 injunction aimed at reforming its App Store payment practices.
It gets worse.
The judge said not only did Apple not follow the rules honestly, but the company could face criminal charges for disrespecting the court.
Also, app developers are now suing Apple together in a large lawsuit to get back money they believe they lost.
The Original 2021 Ruling: Let Developers Link to Outside Payments
The drama began with the 2021 antitrust case between Apple and Epic Games.
The court issued a key ruling against Apple: the company was ordered to allow developers to direct users to alternative payment methods outside of Apple’s in-app purchase system.
This meant that app makers could include external links or buttons leading users to their own websites to complete purchases—avoiding Apple’s standard 30% commission.
The judge’s injunction was clear, to everyone but Apple apparently: Apple could no longer prohibit developers from communicating with users about cheaper payment options available outside the app.
Apple’s Malicious Compliance: 27% Fee and Discouraging Prompts
In typical fashion, Apple rolled out a so-called “compliance” policy that was clearly against the spirit of the injuction. Developers could now link to external payment systems—but only under ridiculous new conditions:
- Apple imposed a 27% commission on purchases made via these external links.
- It required full-screen warnings designed to scare users and deter them from leaving the App Store.
- Approval for these external links was slow and selective, with multiple developers complaining of rejections and arbitrary enforcement.
Because of this kind of nasty work, the case found its way back into the judge’s court.
The Judge, Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers described Apple’s approach as “malicious compliance”—which is following the what the law says literally while violating its spirit.
In her ruling, she noted that Apple chose “the most narrow and commercially unviable implementation” of the court’s order.
Executives Under Fire: False Testimony and Ignored Warnings
The judge also found that Apple executives, including its finance head Alex Roman, provided false testimony under oath. Roman claimed the 27% commission was developed independently of the court ruling, but internal documents contradicted that statement.
The documents showed that Apple executives had discussed complying with the injunction before deciding to defy it.
The judge said,
Internally, Philip Schiller [SVP of worldwide marketing] had advocated that Apple comply with the Injunction. But Tim Cook ignored Schiller and instead allowed Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri and his finance team to convince him otherwise.
Then she gave one of the most badass lines in court history:
Cook chose poorly.
It gets worse, as stated above, Judge Gonzalez Rogers noted that Apple CEO Tim Cook overruled internal objections about the compliance strategy.
Emails showed some Apple staff warned that the plan could be seen as malicious, retaliatory or non-compliant—but Cook allegedly gave it the green light anyway.
This was so serious that the judge referred Apple to federal prosecutors for potential criminal contempt charges, something not usually seen in corporate litigation.
The Scare Screen Fiasco
The original ruling required Apple to allow app developers to include “buttons or links” to external payment mechanisms beyond Apple’s own in-app purchase system.
However, Apple’s implementation was the kind of Mafia stuff you would expect.
In January 2024, the company began allowing developers to link to outside payment systems—but only after navigating through what the court labeled “scare screens.”
These warning pop-ups, appearing when users attempted to leave Apple’s ecosystem for external payments, had language suggesting security and privacy risks, such as: “Apple is not responsible for the privacy or security of purchases made on the web.”
Worse still, emails seen in court revealed a strategy by Apple’s leadership to technically comply with the injunction while undermining its intent, just as we all suspected.
Phil Schiller, who is also former App Store head, remarked, “It will not be attractive at all,” when describing the company’s planned implementation.
Another Apple executive, Adrian Perica, was blunt in his internal email saying the goal was to ensure “very few developers will actually use it”.
Judge Gonzalez Rogers said this was all to stifle competition and consumer choice, violating both the injunction and antitrust principles.
The court said that while Apple might technically allow linking, it had essentially removed the benefit through fear-based messaging and punitive fees .
The latest ruling orders Apple to remove the scare screens and revise its external payment policies to better reflect the original injunction. The court’s stance sends a strong message: legal compliance requires more than box-checking—it demands a sincere effort to meet the ruling’s purpose.
The New Ruling: No More Commissions on External Payments
In her updated ruling, Gonzalez Rogers ordered Apple to cease charging any commission on external payments.
She also mandated that Apple remove the scare screens and revise its external payment policies to better reflect the original injunction.
In other words, the court said legal compliance requires more than box-checking—but rather a sincere effort to meet the ruling’s purpose.
Apple had clearly not tried to meet the ruling’s purpose.
The Fallout: A Billion-Dollar Class Action Looms
After the decision, app developer Pure Sweat Basketball filed a class-action lawsuit on behalf of up to 100,000 developers.
The suit claims that Apple’s malicious tactics and commissions caused widespread financial harm—potentially costing developers hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars.
The class action could expand Apple’s legal troubles significantly, especially if more developers join in.
What’s Next for Apple?
Apple has signaled its intention to appeal the latest decision, but it must now comply with the revised court order.
In the meantime, it faces rising pressure from regulators, developers, and lawmakers in the U.S. and abroad over its App Store dominance.
My hope in all this is that Apple’s legal strategy in this case becomes a textbook example of how not to respond to antitrust regulation.
Leave a Reply Cancel reply