Apple hits back at US judge's 'extraordinary' contempt order

Apple is asking an appeals tribunal to intermission a US territory judge's caller ruling successful a lawsuit which could find the aboriginal of its highly lucrative App Store.

Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers recovered past week the tech elephantine wilfully violated an bid she had antecedently made successful a lawsuit filed by Fortnite-maker Epic Games.

That bid - handed down successful 2021 - demanded Apple refrain from anti-competitive behaviour and pricing and let extracurricular outgo options successful the App Store.

Last week she determined Apple was flouting that request - a uncovering Apple has present called "extraordinary."

Both of Judge Gonzalez Rogers' judgements stem from an antitrust lawsuit filed by Epic Games.

In 2020, Epic accused the iPhone-maker of possessing an amerciable monopoly with its App Store, which collected commissions of betwixt 15% and 30% connected in-app purchases.

The justice rejected Epic's monopoly claims, but recovered Apple was stopping developers from giving users alternate outgo options successful usurpation of California contention rules.

She ordered Apple to marque changes that would assistance developers steer customers to cheaper outgo options extracurricular of the Apple ecosystem.

Last year, Epic accused Apple of failing to comply by creating a caller acceptable of fees for developers instead.

In a contempt bid past week, Judge Gonzalez Rogers recovered that Apple continued to interfere with competition, saying that interior institution documents showed Apple deliberately violated her 2021 injunction.

On Wednesday, Apple requested an appeals tribunal instrumentality action, including by lifting a prohibition that stops it from charging developers fees connected purchases made extracurricular the App Store.

The institution wrote that specified restrictions "will outgo Apple important sums annually" and are based connected behaviour that has not been recovered unlawful.

"Rather, they were imposed to punish Apple for purported non-compliance with an earlier state-law Injunction that is itself invalid," Apple wrote.

Apple did not straight addresses Judge Gonzalez Rogers' stunning rebuke of institution executives.

In her astir caller order, she said CEO Tim Cook ignored enforcement Phillip Schiller's urging to person Apple comply with her injunction, and allowed then-Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri to person him not to.

"Cook chose poorly," she wrote.

The institution documents she reviewed uncover "that Apple knew precisely what it was doing and astatine each crook chose the astir anticompetitive option", she wrote.

Apple said past week it would comply with the court's bid portion it appeals.