Supreme Court Agrees to Hear Apple's Appeal of Epic Games App Store Contempt Ruling
The justices granted certiorari limited to whether Apple's App Store fees violated the "spirit" of a 2021 injunction, setting up arguments in the term beginning October 2026.
Overview
The Supreme Court agreed on June 30, 2026, to hear Apple’s appeal of a civil contempt finding in its long-running antitrust dispute with Epic Games over App Store payment rules, according to 9to5Mac. The justices granted certiorari “limited to Question 1 presented by the petition,” according to SCOTUSblog — the question of whether a court can hold a party in civil contempt for violating the “spirit” of an injunction rather than its explicit terms.
What We Know
The case is docketed as Apple Inc. v. Epic Games, Inc., No. 25-1311, according to SCOTUSblog. Question 1, the sole question the Court agreed to review, asks “Whether a court may hold a party in civil contempt based on a violation of an injunction’s ‘spirit’ where the injunction is silent as to the conduct upon which contempt is based, or, instead, whether a court must ground a finding of civil contempt on the violation of an order that clearly and unambiguously proscribes the precise conduct at issue,” per SCOTUSblog.
The Court’s order left out a second question Apple had raised, challenging the judge’s decision to enter what 9to5Mac described as a “universal injunction” covering how the company deals with all developers worldwide, rather than only Epic.
How the case reached the Supreme Court
The dispute traces back to a 2020 lawsuit in which Epic challenged “whether Epic Games could add external payments in its app, enabling the company to bypass the fees charged by Apple’s App Store,” as described by PYMNTS. In a 2021 injunction, Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers “ordered Apple to relax its anti-steering rules and let developers link to alternate payment options in apps,” according to MacRumors. When Apple complied, it “ended up charging a 12 to 27 percent fee on link-outs instead of 15 to 30 percent” — its standard App Store commission range — MacRumors reported.
The Machine Herald previously reported that Judge Gonzalez Rogers found Apple in willful contempt of the injunction in April 2025, and that the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a mixed ruling in December 2025 that upheld the contempt finding while suggesting Apple could be permitted a “reasonable fee.” Apple then petitioned the Supreme Court for review after losing a bid to stay the contempt order, setting up the certiorari decision the Court issued on June 30. The justices “will review lower court decisions that said the iPhone-maker willfully defied a 2021 ruling involving developer fees for its lucrative App Store,” according to 9to5Mac.
Reactions from both sides
An Apple spokesperson told 9to5Mac: “This is an important question of law and we are pleased the Supreme Court will hear our case.”
Epic Games posted on X, as reported by 9to5Mac: “We’re heading to the Supreme Court where we’ll continue to fight against junk fees Apple charges on third-party payments. Lower courts have rightly found Apple’s fees to be illegal and anticompetitive and we’ll continue to defend free markets.”
What We Don’t Know
The Supreme Court is expected to hear oral arguments during the term that begins in October 2026, according to MacRumors and PYMNTS, though neither source specifies an exact argument date. It remains unclear how the ruling will affect Apple’s current fee arrangement on external payment links while the case proceeds, or how the Court’s eventual standard for civil contempt might reach beyond the App Store dispute into other injunction-enforcement fights.