Apple seeks Supreme Court review of contempt finding and injunction scope in Epic Games case

Apple today filed a request with the Supreme Court in an attempt to reverse key lower court rulings over the App Store injunction in its long-running legal battle with Epic Games. Here are the details.

A bit of background

If you’ve been following the Epic Games versus Apple saga, you know the dispute began in 2020, when Epic used a server-side update to bypass Apple’s In-App Purchase (IAP) system inside Fortnite after the app had already passed App Review.

Apple immediately removed the game from the App Store. Epic immediately sued.

Throughout the many twists and turns of the case, the courts rejected Epic’s broader antitrust claims and largely upheld Apple’s App Store model.

However, Epic did win on one point: in 2021, the court said Apple could no longer block developers from directing users to alternative payment options outside Apple’s IAP system.

Apple changed its rules to allow external links, but also imposed new restrictions and fees on them. Epic challenged that response, and the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California found Apple in contempt, concluding that the company had not complied with the original injunction.

Apple appealed, and the Ninth Circuit gave the company a partial win. It reversed the district court’s outright ban on any commission, but still 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 the App Store.

Apple then asked the Supreme Court to pause this phase while it prepared a broader appeal. Earlier this month, the Supreme Court rejected that stay request, meaning the case could continue moving forward in the District Court. A few days ago, Apple and Epic made a joint filing outlining the schedule for these proceedings.

All of that said, Apple today filed its broader request with the Supreme Court.

Apple sends the case up to the Supreme Court

In its petition, Apple is asking the Supreme Court to review two questions.

The first is whether Apple should have been held in contempt for charging a commission on purchases made outside the App Store.

The second is about the scope of the injunction.

On the first point, Apple argues that the original injunction did not specifically address commissions. Instead, it says the order only prevented Apple from blocking developers from including buttons, external links, or other calls to action directing users to external purchasing options.

According to Apple, that is not the same as saying the company could not charge a commission on those purchases. The Ninth Circuit acknowledged that the text of the injunction did not address commissions, but still upheld the contempt finding 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.

Now, Apple is asking the Supreme Court to reverse 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 matters on its own, regardless of the final commission rate, because it could influence how the lower court handles the case going forward.

As for the second point, regarding scope, Apple argues that the injunction extends far beyond Epic itself, as it applies to all registered developers worldwide with apps on the U.S. App Store storefront. That includes developers that were never part of the Epic case, and, as Apple has pointed out before, even companies that compete with Epic.

Apple argues that this directly conflicts with the Supreme Court’s 2025 decision in Trump v. CASA, which limited the ability of federal courts to issue broad injunctions that go 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 did not ultimately win on its federal antitrust claims in this case.

It is worth noting that the Supreme Court previously declined to hear both Apple and Epic’s earlier appeals in 2024, and recently denied Apple’s request to pause the case while this petition was being prepared.

But that earlier request was for emergency relief, which required a showing of irreparable harm. This new filing is different: Apple is now asking the Supreme Court to review the case itself, with the question being whether the legal issues are important enough for the justices to take up.

Now, Apple is hoping that distinction, along with the latest Ninth Circuit ruling, will be enough for the Supreme Court to take another look.

Because Apple and Epic have agreed to an expedited schedule, the Supreme Court could decide whether to take the case before the justices break for the summer, potentially in late June or early July.

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