An American judge ordered Apple (Aapl) To immediately reduce its costs of the App Store and ask criminal prosecutors to review the so -called “concealment” of the company, compromising billions of income for the technology giant.
The American district judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, in a decision of 80 pages stock, said that Apple had bypassed his order in 2021 which was made for the first time in an antitrust case Brought by the developer “Fortnite” Epic games. That order Said that Apple must allow developers of the App Store to order customers to apply purchases outside the store.
“In force immediately, Apple will no longer hinder the ability of developers to communicate with users and will not allow or impose a new commission on off -application purchases,” wrote Gonzalez Rogers, judge of the American district court in the North District of California.
She accused the vice-president of finance of the technology giant, Alex Roman, of being oathing during the testimony to the court in February and referred the case to the criminal prosecutors of the State to investigate the question of whether the criminal outrage procedure would be appropriate.
Internally Apple, added the judge, Apple Phillip Schiller colleague had recommended that Apple complies with his injunction in 2021, but this was ignored by CEO Tim Cook.
“Cook has chosen badly,” wrote Gonzalez Rogers.
His mandate raises new questions about the financial impact on a major source of income for Apple while the technology giant is preparing to publish a profit in the second quarter after the bell on Thursday.
The iPhone manufacturer, which holds roughly 19% of the global smartphone marketGains costs on integrated purchases created by iOS application developers.
The ninth circuit said in a judicial document that the App Store had generated around $ 100 billion in annual income. In February 2025, the store hosted around 2 million downloadable applications.
In 2024, according to In Statita, the store has won nearly $ 92 billion worldwide, an increase of 14% compared to 2023.
The legal drama that took place this week started in August 2020, when Epic first contested Apple with a trial.
It was finally decided in part in favor of Apple, noting that the company did not hold a monopoly on the market for “digital mobile game transactions”.
However, in a major victory for EPIC – and the applicants of application as a whole – the judge judged that the anti -stenuation provisions contained in the rules of the App Store have violated the California antitrust law.
Essentially, the command of Gonzalez Rogers 2021 said that Apple should allow developers to include links and buttons in their applications which can lead users to pay for integrated purchases outside the App Store.
