Apple “intentionally decided not to follow” a court order in order to relax restrictions in the application store – and one of his management staff he wrote on Wednesday.
Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers directed the situation to the office of the US prosecutor in San Francisco “in order to examine whether the criminal contempt proceedings are appropriate.”
Apple did not immediately answer at the request for comment.
In 2021, Gonzalez Rogers presided over over the lawsuit imported by Fortnite The Epic Games developer over the allegedly anti -competitive practitioner of the iPhone manufacturer, which hinder programmers’ ability to generate revenues from the App Store. This included the Apple principle regarding the acceptance of a 30 % commission on some purchases in the application.
Last year, EPIC questioned in court how Apple reacted to the order, leading Gonzalez Rogers to the requirement from the giant of the technological transfer of documents that contributed to the Wednesday decision of contempt.
Apple implemented its strategy of non -compliance “with a clear intention of creating new contracted barriers, which, according to the design, and in effect would maintain a valuable stream of income; income stream previously turned out to be anti -competitive,” wrote Gonzalez Rogers in her ruling on Wednesday. “He believes that the Tribunal tolerates such insubordination, was a gross error.”
She also said that Apple management tried to hide real motivations to change. “In contrast to the initial testimony of Apple, modern business documents reveal that Apple knew exactly what he was doing and chose the most at every step antiCompetitive option – said Gonzalez Rogers. She went to the accusation of Alex Roman, Vice President for Finance in Apple, about a lie during the testimony in which he spoke about how Apple decided about a 27 % commission on purchases made outside the application store. “Mr. Roman’s testimony was complicated with error and simply lie,” said the judge.
Roman did not answer immediately at the request for comment.
Referring to the internal Apple documents from 2023, Gonzalez Rogers said that the head of the Apple App Store Phillip Schiller “was in favor of the fact that Apple was warning the order”, but this general director Tim Cook “ignored Schiller, and instead allowed the financial director of Lucie Maestri and his financial team.”
The judge demanded that Apple follow her earlier order. “It’s an order, not negotiations,” she wrote. “There are no things when the party deliberately disregards the court order. Time is crucial. The court will not tolerate further delays. As previously ordered, Apple will not hinder competition.”
General Director of Epic Games Tim Sweeney Posted to X that a recent ruling would be laid by “15-30% fee for 15-30% Apple”.