Supreme Court intervenes in Apple's Epic dispute

The years-long legal battle over App Store fees has reached its highest level of escalation: The US Supreme Court has agreed to hear Apple's appeal against the Contempt ruling in the Epic case. However, the court explicitly left open a second, more far-reaching question.

The dispute between Apple and Epic Games has been ongoing since 2020 and has now gone through virtually every level of the US legal system. Apple has repeatedly attempted to force a ruling from the Supreme Court – most recently with an emergency motion to temporarily halt the ongoing proceedings regarding the amount of commissions, which was rejected by Justice Elena Kagan. This Tuesday, the Supreme Court announced that it will take up the case – but only on one of the two points raised by Apple. The hearing is expected to take place during the next session, which begins in October.

What the court will examine

At the heart of the matter is the question of whether Apple willfully disregarded the 2021 ruling. At that time, Federal Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers ordered that Apple must allow developers to link to external purchasing options within their apps – a break with the previously applicable anti-steering rule. Apple complied with the ruling but attached a 27 percent commission to purchases made by users within seven days of clicking such an external link. By comparison, Apple charges 30 percent for purchases made directly through its own in-app purchase system.

Epic Games considered the new fee a circumvention of the original order. In April 2025, Judge Gonzalez Rogers found that Apple had willfully violated the order and issued a contempt of court ruling. Apple now seeks to have this ruling overturned by the Supreme Court. The company argues that the original order did not prohibit it from imposing new fees on external purchases—a contempt conviction is therefore unjustified.

The point the Supreme Court is missing

In its brief ruling on Tuesday, the court made it clear that it was not addressing a second issue. Apple had also challenged the scope of the order: The order applied not only to Epic, but to all developers with apps in the US App Store – effectively worldwide. Apple considered this a so-called "universal injunction" and cited a Supreme Court ruling from the previous year that had limited the authority of courts to issue such sweeping orders (via Bloomberg).

The fact that the Supreme Court is not examining this legal avenue narrows the proceedings to the question of contempt. For Apple, this means that even a complete victory in Washington would not affect the fundamental scope of the order.

How the adoption came about

It became clear as early as spring that Apple intended to take its case to the Supreme Court. The company appealed the Contempt ruling, and in December 2025, the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued a mixed ruling: It upheld the violation but deemed the initial court's complete ban on commissions excessive. Apple is, in principle, entitled to reasonable compensation for the use of its intellectual property. The case was remanded to the Federal Court, which is to determine a specific commission rate.

Back in 2024, the Supreme Court had already rejected a joint appeal from both sides, and the emergency motion to stay the proceedings was also unsuccessful in May of this year. The current ruling thus represents Apple's first real victory on its road to Washington – albeit a limited one.

What applies until a decision is reached

As long as the legal proceedings are ongoing, the current practice remains in place: Developers are allowed to link to external payment options in their US apps, and Apple is prohibited from charging a commission on these links. Since the Contempt ruling in April 2025, no money flows to the company for such link-outs. Every day without a fee represents a financial disadvantage for Apple – at the same time, the Supreme Court's acceptance of the ruling buys the company time before the federal court sets a final commission rate.

A precedent for the entire app market

The outcome affects far more than just Epic. Should the federal court ultimately set a low commission or eliminate the fee altogether, all developers in the US App Store would be affected – major providers like Spotify and Amazon already use external linking. For Apple, a cornerstone of its growing services business is at stake. The fact that the Supreme Court is focusing specifically on the contempt issue and omitting the dispute over the scope of application suggests that the case will be less about fundamental market principles and more about the legal soundness of the verdict. The real question of power – how much control a platform should be allowed to retain over payment methods – thus remains open for now. (Image: Shutterstock / Orhan Cam)