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A national justice has powerfully rebuked Apple, uncovering that the iPhone shaper willfully violated a tribunal injunction successful an antitrust lawsuit filed by "Fortnite" shaper Epic Games.
U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers had ordered Apple to little the barriers protecting its antecedently exclusive outgo strategy for in-app integer transactions and let developers to show links to alternate options. On Wednesday, she recovered that Apple violated a 2021 injunction that, she wrote, sought to "restrain and prohibit the iPhone maker's anticompetitive conduct" and pricing.
"Apple's continued attempts to interfere with contention volition not beryllium tolerated," Gonzalez Rogers wrote successful Wednesday's ruling, which held Apple successful contempt.
She ordered that Apple "no longer impede developers' quality to pass with users nor volition they levy oregon enforce a caller committee connected off-app purchases."
Epic archetypal filed an antitrust suit successful 2020, alleging that Apple had built an amerciable monopoly astir its fashionable App Store that makes billions of dollars annually from a then-exclusive outgo strategy that collects commissions ranging from 15% to 30% connected in-app commerce.
Although Gonzalez Rogers had rejected the monopoly claims, she ordered Apple to little the barriers protecting its antecedently exclusive outgo strategy for in-app integer transactions and let developers to show links to alternate options. The Supreme Court rejected Apple's entreaty successful the lawsuit successful January 2024.
"In stark opposition to Apple's archetypal in-court testimony, contemporaneous concern documents uncover that Apple knew precisely what it was doing and astatine each crook chose the astir anticompetitive option," the justice wrote connected Wednesday. She accused Apple's vice-president of concern Alex Roman of "outright" lying nether oath.
"Internally, (longtime Apple executive) Phillip Schiller had advocated that Apple comply with the injunction, but (CEO) Tim Cook ignored Schiller and alternatively allowed Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri and his concern squad to person him otherwise. Cook chose poorly," Gonzalez Rogers wrote.
The justice referred the substance to the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of California to analyse whether transgression contempt proceedings are appropriate.
Apple did not instantly respond to a petition for remark connected Wednesday.
The Justice Department filed a broad antitrust lawsuit against Apple past year, alleging that the tech elephantine engaged successful a bid of efforts to stifle competition.
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