What the Court Found

On 30 April 2025, Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers of the US District Court for the Northern District of California held Apple in civil contempt for violating the anti-steering injunction she issued following her September 2021 ruling in Epic v. Apple. The injunction had required Apple to allow developers to include in their apps links or buttons directing users to external purchase options — breaking the anti-steering clause Apple had enforced since the App Store's earliest rules.

Apple complied in form but not in substance. Rather than opening a genuine pathway to outside payment, it imposed a 27 percent commission on purchases made through linked external websites — nearly matching the standard 30 percent in-app rate — and wrapped every outbound link in an interstitial warning screen designed to discourage users from tapping through. The court found that Apple had deliberately constructed this framework to preserve its economic position while appearing to comply, and that internal documents showed Apple executives had weighed the costs of defiance against the costs of genuine compliance and chose defiance.

The exterior of the Robert F. Peckham Federal Building and United States Courthouse in Oakland, California, photographed on a clear day from the plaza
The federal courthouse in Oakland. The United States never legislated on this; it litigated, twice.Photo: Robert So / Pexels

The ruling found the conduct wilful. Gonzalez Rogers concluded that Apple had not made a good-faith attempt to honour the injunction's purpose and referred the matter to the US Attorney's Office for the Northern District of California for a criminal contempt investigation — an escalation rarely deployed in commercial litigation of this kind.

On remedies, the court prohibited Apple from collecting any commission on purchases made through external links for apps in the United States, effective immediately. Apple was also barred from imposing the interstitial warning screens on those links. The ruling did not impose a fine, but the referral to federal prosecutors left open the possibility of criminal penalties for the executives involved.

Chronology

  1. September 2021Gonzalez Rogers issues original anti-steering injunction after Oakland trial
  2. 2023Ninth Circuit affirms the injunction on appeal
  3. Early 2024Apple introduces 27% external-link commission and interstitial warning screens
  4. 30 April 2025Contempt finding issued; referral made to US Attorney's Office

Apple said it would appeal the contempt order ↗, maintaining that its compliance approach was legally defensible. The Ninth Circuit, which had already affirmed the anti-steering injunction in 2023, will hear any challenge — but the lower court's order remained in force pending appeal. Epic Games, whose 2020 lawsuit initiated the case, called the contempt finding a vindication of what it had argued since the Oakland proceedings began.