A court ruling prevents “Apple” from collecting commissions outside the application store

A federal judge said that Apple has violated a judicial order that obliges it to open the “Ap Store” application store in front of the payment options from the third parties, and ordered the company to stop the imposition of commissions on purchases that take place outside its digital platform, noting that it may be referred for a criminal investigation.

The American judge, iPhone Gonzalez Rogers, issued a sharp -wording decision on Wednesday, in which she stood alongside the company “Epic Games”, the developer of the “Fortnite” game, which accused “Apple” of not adhering to the court order issued in 2021, which was concluded that the company practiced anti -competition behavior in violation of the California State Law.

Judge Gonzalez Rogers also referred the case to the Federal Prosecution to investigate whether Apple had committed the crime of “criminal court contempt” by ignoring the judicial ruling issued in 2021.

So far, the US Prosecutor’s Office in San Francisco refused to comment on the case.

Financial repercussions on “Apple”
The changes that the company must be implemented now may have great harm to the revenues of the application store, which is estimated at tens of billions of dollars annually. Apple is also facing the possibility of billion dollars in losing as a result of the loss of the payments provided by “Google” to be the virtual search engine in the Safari browser, a point that is currently subject to the anti -monopoly lawsuit led by the US Department of Justice against the “Alphabet Inn” unit.

After several weeks of hearings held last year and this year, Judge Gonzalez Rogers concluded on Wednesday that Apple “has deliberately violated its judicial order.”

“I did an explicit intention to create new barriers against competition, aiming in terms of design and influence to maintain a valuable source of income; a source has previously been judged by anti -competition.” She added: “her belief that this court will tolerate this disobedience was a fatal mistake in appreciation.”

Apple said in a statement that it “strongly opposes” this decision. A representative of the company added: “We will comply with the court order and we will appeal.”

Welcome
For his part, Tim Sweeney, CEO of EPEC GMS, described the referee as a “great victory for developers”, and said in a phone call with reporters that “Apple is forced to compete with other payment services instead of banning it.”

After a trial conducted in 2021, Judge Gonzalez Rogers was largely sided with Apple, considering that its application store policies do not violate the Federal Monopotic Act. However, the company obliged to allow developers to exceed the payment tool within its application to avoid a commission of up to 30%. This ruling was eventually supported by the US Supreme Court last year, when it refused to consider the appeals presented in the case.

Apple allowed developers to direct users to the web to complete the purchases inside the application, but it stipulated that developers pay 27% of the revenues they achieve for the company.

In a ruling issued on Wednesday, the judge said that “Apple” tried to cover up not to comply with its judicial order issued in 2021.

Judge Gonzalez Rogers wrote: “After two rounds of evidence -based listening sessions, the truth appeared. Apple, despite her knowledge of its obligations, thwarted the goals of the judicial order, and continued its anti -competition behavior only in order to maintain its source of income.”

A false certificate for Apple official
The judge said that Alex Roman, Vice President of Financial Affairs at Apple, lied while testifying before the court.

“It has reached the point of claiming that Apple had not seen analogues or alternatives to estimate the costs of other payment solutions that developers may need to facilitate purchases through external links,” Rogers wrote, noting that Apple has already considered these alternatives.

Because the company and its lawyers did not correct the testimony of Roman, the judge wrote: “Apple will prepare the lies and misinformation addressed to this court.”

Gonzalez Rogers also concluded that “Apple” misused the principle of confidentiality between the lawyer and the client in its attempt to block information about “EPEC”, and obligated it to pay the legal fees that “Eppique” was bought while it is seeking to obtain the documents.

The case bears the number 20-CV-05640, between the two companies Epic Games Inc. And Apple Inc., in the US District Court of the Northern Region of California (Auckland).