Supreme Court to hear Apple's appeal in Epic Games lawsuit battle

The U.S. Supreme Court agreed on Tuesday to listen to Apple’s appeal to a contempt ruling in its years-long antitrust battle with Epic Games, which could set the stage for a landmark decision on how courts judge suits against tech platforms.

The case revolves around the validity of a civil contempt ruling against a company for violating the “spirit” of a court order when the order’s text does not explicitly prohibit the conduct in question.

A seven year old dispute

Epic Games sued Apple in 2020 over App Store payment restrictions, arguing that the iPhone maker’s rules blocked developers from directing users to cheaper purchasing options outside the app. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers issued an injunction in 2021 ordering Apple to allow the external payment links.

Apple responded by creating a system that permitted outside links but charged developers commissions ranging from 12% up to 27% on resulting sales. Before the dispute, Apple had taken a 30% cut of App Store transactions, a rate it reduced to 15% for many smaller developers in 2020.

Epic accused the company of “malicious compliance” and asked the court to intervene. In April 2025, Gonzalez Rogers found Apple in contempt of the original order. An appeals court largely affirmed that finding in December, though it struck down a provision that would have barred Apple from charging any commission on purchases made through external links, according to Engadget.

What is the Supreme Court deciding on?

Apple filed a 34-page petition in May asking the Supreme Court justices to review two pertinent areas of this longstanding case. Firstly, Apple contends that a party cannot be punished for conduct that a court injunction never expressly prohibited. The company’s lawyers argued that the lower court penalized Apple for violating the order’s “spirit” rather than its explicit terms, a standard Apple says is unique to the Ninth Circuit, per AppleInsider.

Secondly, Apple questioned whether this injunction should apply to all U.S.-based developers or only to Epic. The Supreme Court declined to take up this second issue, Engadget reported, meaning the injunction still applies for all developers for now.

When announcing the case, the court framed the central question exactly as “whether a court may hold a party in civil contempt based on a violation of an injunction’s ‘spirit’ where the injunction is silent as to the conduct upon which contempt is based.”

What’s next for the appeal lawsuit

Court sittings are expected to begin when the Supreme Court’s new term starts in October, with a ruling likely by June 2027. In the meantime, the contempt finding remains in effect after Justice Elena Kagan denied Apple’s request to pause the ruling last month.

Both sides of the dispute sounded confident that the ruling would go their way. “This is an important question of law, and we are pleased the Supreme Court will hear our case,” an Apple spokesperson stated. Epic responded on X, saying that “We’re heading to the Supreme Court, where we’ll continue our fight against junk fees Apple charges on third-party payments.”

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