Apple could face criminal charges allegedly lying to a federal judge
Apple “deliberately chose not to comply” in a court order to ease restrictions on the App Store, and one of its executives lied under oath about the company’s plans. I wrote it on Wednesday.
Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers introduced the situation to the US Lawyer’s Office in San Francisco and “examine whether the criminal cont crime proceedings are appropriate.”
Apple did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Gonzalez Rogers made his main side in 2021 Regarding the lawsuit brought by Fortnite developers’ epic games at the claims of the iPhone manufacturer Anti-competitive practices This has hampered the ability of developers to generate revenue from the app store. This included Apple’s policy of charging a 30% fee for certain in-app purchases.
Gonzalez Rogers I finally ruled In support of Apple in most respects, she ordered the company to allow developers to sell ways to make in-app purchases outside the App Store ecosystem. Apple answered We also introduced a series of other changes, including lowering the fee to 27% for purchases made elsewhere, discouraging users from purchasing outside of that ecosystem, such as displaying a so-called horror screen.
Last year, Epic challenged the court how Apple was responding to the order, leading Gonzalez Rogers to demand that the Tech giant take over the documents that helped Wednesday’s ruling of light empty.
Apple pursued a non-compliance strategy. “There are revenue streams that have previously proven to be anti-competitive, with the explicit intention of creating new anti-competitive barriers that maintain design and effectively valuable revenue streams,” Gonzalez Rogers wrote in his ruling Wednesday. “It was a serious miscalculation that this court thought would tolerate such disobedience.”
She also said Apple executives tried to hide their true motivations for change. “In stark contrast to Apple’s first in-court testimony, business documents from the same period revealed that Apple knew exactly what it was doing, and were the most chosen for every turn. AntiGonzalez Rogers said. She denounced Apple’s vice president of finance, Alex Roman, and spoke about the testimony that led to Apple’s decision to reach a 27% purchase committee outside the App Store.
Roman did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Citing an internal Apple document from 2023, Gonzalez Rogers said Apple’s App Store chief Philip Schiller “instigated that Apple would follow the injunction,” while CEO Tim Cook said “didn’t ignore Schiller and instead allowed Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri and his finance team to convince him.”
The judge requested that Apple immediately comply with her previous orders. “This is an injunction, not a negotiation,” she wrote. “There’s nothing to do after the parties knowingly ignore the court’s order. Time is essential. The court will not tolerate any further delays. As previously ordered, Apple will not hinder competition.”
Tim Sweeney, CEO of the epic game I said In X, the new ruling will put an end to “Apple’s 15-30% junk fee.”