Apple today filed a petition with the Supreme Court seeking to overturn key lower court rulings regarding the App Store injunction in its long-running legal battle with Epic Games. Here are the details.
A little context
If you’ve been following the Epic Games vs. Apple saga, you know that the dispute began in 2020, when Epic used a server-side update to bypass Apple’s in-app purchase (IAP) system in Fortnite after the app had already passed app review.
Apple immediately removed the game from the App Store. Epic immediately filed a complaint.
Through the case’s many twists and turns, courts have rejected Epic’s broader antitrust claims and largely upheld Apple’s App Store model.
However, Epic won on one point: in 2021, the court declared that Apple could no longer prevent developers from directing users to other payment options outside of Apple’s IAP system.
Apple changed its rules to allow external links, but also imposed new restrictions and fees on them. Epic challenged this response, and the US Court for the Northern District of California found Apple in contempt, finding that the company had failed to comply with the initial injunction.
Apple appealed, and the Ninth Circuit gave the company a partial victory. It overturned the district court’s outright ban on any commissions, but nonetheless upheld the underlying contempt finding against Apple. The court then sent the case back to the district court to determine what commission Apple can charge on purchases made outside of the App Store.
Apple then asked the Supreme Court to suspend this phase while it prepares a broader appeal. Earlier this month, the Supreme Court denied that stay request, meaning the case could continue moving forward in district court. A few days ago, Apple and Epic filed a joint filing describing the timeline for these procedures.
That said, Apple filed its broader request with the Supreme Court today.
Apple sends case to Supreme Court
In its petition, Apple asks the Supreme Court to reconsider two issues.
The first is whether Apple should have been held in contempt for charging a commission on purchases made outside of the App Store.
The second concerns the scope of the injunction.
On the first point, Apple argues that the initial injunction did not specifically relate to commissions. Instead, it says the order only prevented Apple from preventing developers from including buttons, external links, or other calls to action directing users to external purchasing options.
According to Apple, this does not mean that the company cannot charge a commission on these purchases. The Ninth Circuit recognized that the text of the injunction did not address the commissions, but nonetheless upheld the finding of contempt.
However, he upheld the finding of contempt by relying on the idea that a party can violate the “spirit” of an injunction, even when the injunction does not specifically prohibit the conduct at issue.
Apple is now asking the Supreme Court to overturn that contempt finding, arguing that a court order must clearly and unambiguously prohibit the specific conduct at issue before a party can be held in contempt for violating it.
Apple has previously argued that the contempt finding is important in its own right, regardless of the final commission rate, because it could influence how the lower court handles the case in the future.
Apple is also challenging other parts of the ruling for contempt, including findings related to its design restrictions regarding buttons and link patterns, although the commission question remains the central outstanding issue.
As for the second point, regarding scope, Apple argues that the injunction extends well beyond Epic itself, as it applies to all registered developers worldwide with apps on the US App Store storefront. This includes developers who were never part of Epic’s business and, as Apple has already pointed out, even companies that compete with Epic.
Apple argues that this directly conflicts with the Supreme Court’s 2025 decision in Trump v. Apple. CASA, which limited the ability of federal courts to issue general injunctions beyond the parties actually involved in a case.
Apple also argues that the Ninth Circuit effectively created an antitrust or competition exception to CASA, even though Epic was ultimately unsuccessful in its federal antitrust claims in that case.
It’s worth noting that the Supreme Court previously declined to hear Apple and Epic’s prior appeals in 2024, and recently denied Apple’s request to put the case on hold while this petition is prepared.
But that earlier request was for emergency aid, which required proof of irreparable harm. This new filing is different: Apple is now asking the Supreme Court to review the case itself, the question being whether the legal issues are important enough for the justices to take up.
Apple now hopes that this distinction, along with the Ninth Circuit’s latest ruling, will be enough for the Supreme Court to take another look.
Since Apple and Epic have agreed to an accelerated timeline, the Supreme Court could decide whether to take up the case again before the justices recess for the summer, potentially in late June or early July.
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