Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers issued a scathing ruling against Apple, saying it was guilty of a willful violation of an injunction and referred the company for a criminal contempt investigation.

The ruling stems from Apple’s long-running battle against Fortnite maker Epic Games. In its case, Apple won on virtually all grounds save one, with Judge Rogers ruling the company must allow app developers to direct customers to payment options outside the App Store. This would give developers a way to bypass the fees Apple charges by using alternate payment methods.

Unfortunately, instead of taking its victory on the nine point in which Judge Rogers sided with Apple, the iPhone maker opted to not only continue legally fighting the one point it lost, but it also willfully refused to comply with the court’s order, according to Judge Rogers latest ruling.

Apple’s response to the Injunction strains credulity. After two sets of evidentiary hearings, the truth emerged. Apple, despite knowing its obligations thereunder, thwarted the Injunction’s goals, and continued its anticompetitive conduct solely to maintain its revenue stream. Remarkably, Apple believed that this Court would not see through its obvious cover-up (the 2024 evidentiary hearing). To unveil Apple’s actual decision-making process, not the one tailor-made for litigation, the Court ordered production of real-time documents and ultimately held a second set of hearings in 2025.

Judge Rogers goes on to say that Apple continued to put up new barriers for app developers in an effort to prevent them from directing customers to other payment options, as well as instituted a 27% fee for any purchases made outside the App Store.

To summarize: One, after trial, the Court found that Apple’s 30 percent commission “allowed it to reap supracompetitive operating margins” and was not tied to the value of its intellectual property, and thus, was anticompetitive. Apple’s response: charge a 27 percent commission (again tied to nothing) on off-app purchases, where it had previously charged nothing, and extend the commission for a period of seven days after the consumer linked-out of the app. Apple’s goal: maintain its anticompetitive revenue stream. Two, the Court had prohibited Apple from denying developers the ability to communicate with, and direct consumers to, other purchasing mechanisms. Apple’s response: impose new barriers and new requirements to increase friction and increase breakage rates with full page “scare” screens, static URLs, and generic statements. Apple’s goal: to dissuade customer usage of alternative purchase opportunities and maintain its anticompetitive revenue stream. In the end, Apple sought to maintain a revenue stream worth billions in direct defiance of this Court’s Injunction.

Allegations of Criminal Contempt

To make matters worse for Apple, Judge Rogers accuses VP of Finance Alex Roman of lying to the court under oath.

In stark contrast to Apple’s initial in-court testimony, contemporaneous business documents reveal that Apple knew exactly what it was doing and at every turn chose the most anticompetitive option. To hide the truth, Vice-President of Finance, Alex Roman, outright lied under oath.

…

Despite its own considerable evaluation, during the first May 2024 hearing, Apple employees attempted to mislead the Court by testifying that the decision to impose a commission was grounded in AG’s report. (See, e.g., May 2024 Tr. 544:16–24 (Oliver); see also Dkt. No. 1324, Apple Trial Brief at 12.) The testimony of Mr. Roman, Vice President of Finance, was replete with misdirection and outright lies. He even went so far as to testify that Apple did not look at comparables to estimate the costs of alternative payment solutions that developers would need to procure to facilitate linked-out purchases. (May 2024 Tr. 266:22–267:11 (Roman).)

The Court finds that Apple did consider the external costs developers faced when utilizing alternative payment solutions for linked out transactions, which conveniently exceeded the 3% discount Apple ultimately decided to provide by a safe margin. (See CX-265.27 (Apple’s estimates of external costs for developers); Feb. 2025 Tr. 1627:15–1628:10 (Vij) (discussing external costs).) Apple did not rely on a substantiated bottoms-up analysis during its months-long assessment of whether to impose a commission, seemingly justifying its decision after the fact with the AG’s report.

Phil Schiller Was a Voice of Reason

In contrast to Roman, Judge Rogers praised Apple Fellow and long-time exec Phil Schiller, pointing out that he advocated for compliance with the injunction within the company. She also praised Schiller for actually attending the entire initial trial, and reading the entire 180-page ruling, meaning his voice was one of the more educated ones within the company.

Prior to the June 20 meeting, there were individuals within Apple who were advocating for a commission, and others advocating for no commission. (Feb. 2025 Tr. 1521:3–12 (Oliver).) Those advocating for a commission included Mr. Maestri and Mr. Roman. (Id. 1522:3–10 (Oliver).) Mr. Schiller disagreed. (Id. 1521:13–18 (Oliver).) In an email, Mr. Schiller relayed that, with respect to the proposal for “a 27% commission for 24 hours,” “I have already explained my many issues with the commission concept,” and that “clearly I am not on team commission/fee.” (CX-224.1.)29 Mr. Schiller testified that, at the time, he “had a question of whether we would be able to charge a commission” under the Injunction, a concern which he communicated. (Feb. 2025 Tr. 1177:24–1178:9 (Schiller).) Unlike Mr. Maestri and Mr. Roman, Mr. Schiller sat through the entire underlying trial and actually read the entire 180-page decision. That Messrs. Maestri and Roman did neither, does not shield Apple of its knowledge (actual and constructive) of the Court’s findings.

Tim Cook’s Culpability

Judge Rogers places the blame squarely on the man at the top, saying CEO Tim Cook—as the tiebreaker between Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri and Phil Schiller, chose to put profit over legal compliance.

Internally, Phillip Schiller had advocated that Apple comply with the Injunction, but Tim Cook ignored Schiller and instead allowed Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri and his finance team to convince him otherwise. Cook chose poorly.

Judge Rogers’ Conclusion and Referral for Criminal Investigation

Ultimately Judge Rogers’ final statement is a damning indictment of Apple’s actions.

Apple willfully chose not to comply with this Court’s Injunction. It did so with the express intent to create new anticompetitive barriers which would, by design and in effect, maintain a valued revenue stream; a revenue stream previously found to be anticompetitive. That it thought this Court would tolerate such insubordination was a gross miscalculation. As always, the coverup made it worse. For this Court, there is no second bite at the apple.

Judge Rogers, while not taking a position on whether criminal prosecution is warranted, nonetheless is referring the matter to the Attorney General for investigation.

Accordingly, under Rule 42(a)(2) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, the Court refers the issue to the United States Attorney for the Northern District of California, Patrick D. Robbins, or his designee(s), for investigation against Apple and Alex Roman, Apple’s Vice President of Finance specifically. The Court takes no position on whether a criminal prosecution is or is not warranted. The decision is entirely that of the United States Attorney. It will be for the executive branch to decide whether Apple should be deprived of the fruits of its violation, in addition to any penalty geared to deter future misconduct.

Apple’s Response

In a statement to 9to5Mac Apple said it will comply with the order but plans to appeal.

“We strongly disagree with the decision. We will comply with the court’s order and we will appeal.”

Conclusion

As we have repeatedly stated at WPN, Apple should have taken its overwhelming victory against Epic and left well enough alone. In fact, our coverage in mid-2023 made this exact case.

As we have stated before, it’s hard to imagine what Apple hopes to achieve. The company already allows apps in some categories, so-called “reader apps,” to direct their users to alternate payment methods. Such apps include Netflix and other streaming providers.

Given Apple’s overwhelming win, it seems common sense would dictate that it leave well enough alone, take the nine wins, and move on.

It appears even Phil Schiller believed such a course of action to be prudent, and the company is in a far worse situation for not listening to him.