On Wednesday, a federal judge established that Apple has to loosen his grip on his App Store and stop collecting a commission on app sales, limiting an antitrust case of five years brought by Epic games that aimed to change the power that Apple brandishes on a large slice of the digital economy.
The judge, Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, reproached Apple for having opposed a previous sentence in the case and said that the company had to be prevented from disobeying the court. He criticized Tim Cook, CEO of Apple and accused other managers of the Compagnia di Mentire.
In his previous sentence, Judge Gonzales Rogers ordered Apple to allow apps to provide users with external connections to pay the developers directly for the services. The apps could therefore avoid the 30 percent commission that Apple charges in its App Store and potentially charge less for services.
Instead, Judge Gonzalez Rogers declared Wednesday that Apple created a new system that forced the apps with external sales to pay a 27 % commission to the company. Apple also created pop-up screens that discouraged customers from paying elsewhere, telling them that payments outside the App Store may not be sure.
“Apple has tried to maintain a flow of revenue for a billions of billions of challenge directed to the injunction of this Court,” wrote Judge Gonzalez Rogers.
In response, he said Apple could no longer take commissions from sales outside the App Store. He also prevented the company from writing rules that would prevent developers from creating buttons or connections to pay outside the shop and said he could not create messages to discourage users from purchasing. In addition, Judge Gonzalez Rogers asked the American prosecutor for the northern district of California to investigate the company for criminal contempt.
The sentence – a great victory for the epic and a pungent defeat for Apple – has the potential to change the economy of the app by increasing the money that the developers collect while reducing the commissions that flow towards Apple. This is striking in one of the main Apple companies, with its long -term App Store the most important destination for people to download games for mobile devices, productivity tools and other programs.
“There will be a lot of latitude for developers to get better business and consumers to get better business,” said Tim Sweeney, Epic of Epic's administrator. “This is a wonderful and wonderful day for everyone.”
Apple could appeal to the decision. The company did not respond to the requests for comment. His shares sank 1.5 percent in negotiations after hours.
Epic, the manufacturer of the Fortnite game, brought the antitrust cause against Apple in 2020. In the cause, Epic has accused Apple of forcing the app producers to use its payment system in exchange for access to the App Store, which is the only way to distribute apps on the iPhone. The rules have allowed Apple to collect up to a 30 % commission on many transactions.
The App Store is a large part of almost $ 100 billion in annual revenue that Apple collects.
Two years later, Judge Gonzalez Rogers stopped declaring that Apple had a monopoly in the mobile games market, as Epic supported. This meant that Apple avoided the worst possible result of the case. But he discovered that the company had violated the laws of California against unjust competition by preventing developers from offering users alternative ways to pay apps.
Last year, Epic complained with the court that Apple was not respecting the sentence because he had created a new series of commissions and rules for developers. The judge ordered Apple to provide documents that explain how he devised his new system.
Apple's documents showed that he tried to discourage alternative payments and maintain the traditional commission of 30 percent as possible. In a meeting in July 2023, Phil Schiller, who supervises the App Store, claimed that Apple did not take commissions, but at the time Luca Maestri, head of the Finance of Apple, supported a 27 %commission. Mr. Cook sided with Mr. Maestri, according to the documents.
Cook also asked that when people click on the connections to pay the apps outside the App Store, a “fright” screen was shown that says “that Apple's privacy and safety standards do not apply to purchases made on the web.”
“Apple knew exactly what he was doing and at every turn he chose the most anti -concurrent option,” said judge Gonzalez Rogers.
He said the Apple managers had “completely lied under oath” and added: “Cook chose badly”.