By Mike Scarcella
(Reuters) – Apple faces a doable felony contempt probe after a U.S. choose stated it violated an order to open its profitable App Retailer to extra competitors and misled the court docket.
Here’s a take a look at how Apple bought right here and what comes subsequent within the blockbuster lawsuit introduced by “Fortnite” maker Epic Video games.
WHAT DID THE JUDGE SAY?
U.S. District Choose Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers in Oakland on Wednesday dominated Apple was in “willful” violation of an injunction she issued in 2021 in an antitrust lawsuit filed by Epic Video games.
Epic sued in 2020 to loosen Apple’s management over transactions in purposes that use its iOS working system and the way apps are distributed to customers. The choose’s prior order required Apple to offer builders extra energy to steer app customers to non-Apple cost choices that keep away from Apple’s 30% fee.
Apple did not persuade the U.S. Supreme Courtroom to overturn the injunction, and it went into impact in early 2024. The brand new ruling involved whether or not Apple had complied with phrases of the injunction.
The choose accused Apple of “insubordination” and stated it had tried to cowl up its decision-making course of from the court docket.
WHAT MUST APPLE DO NOW?
Gonzalez Rogers stated Apple should finish a number of practices that she stated have been designed to bypass her injunction, together with a brand new 27% charge it imposed on app builders when Apple clients full an app buy outdoors the App Retailer.
She additionally barred the corporate from utilizing “scare screens” to discourage customers from utilizing third-party cost choices. Apple had denied violating phrases of the court docket’s order.
WHY DID THE JUDGE MAKE A CRIMINAL CONTEMPT REFERRAL?
On high of discovering Apple took steps to evade her injunction, Gonzalez Rogers referred Apple and one in every of its executives to federal prosecutors for a doable felony contempt investigation.
“Apple sought to keep up a income stream value billions in direct defiance of this court docket’s injunction,” she stated, discovering that inside data confirmed “Apple knew precisely what it was doing” and {that a} finance govt had lied below oath.
Federal judges have authority to ask an investigative company such because the U.S. Justice Division to probe whether or not corporations and people ought to be prosecuted criminally for violating court docket orders.
Gonzalez Rogers declined to say whether or not the federal government ought to carry a cost. That will likely be as much as the U.S. legal professional who oversees the San Francisco and Oakland federal prosecution groups.
Firms discovered to be in felony contempt might be topic to fines, and people can face jail time.
