Supreme Court Agrees to Hear Apple’s Appeal of Contempt Finding in Epic Games Lawsuit

The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to take up Apple’s bid to avoid being found in civil contempt in its legal battle with Epic Games after it was found to have violated a lower court’s order.

U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzales Rogers of Oakland, California, had found Apple in contempt in the “Fortnite” video game maker’s lawsuit challenging App Store fees.

The Supreme Court’s June 30 decision took the form of an unsigned order in the case known as Apple Inc. v. Epic Games Inc. No justices dissented. The court did not explain its decision.

The Supreme Court is expected to focus on the contempt issue and not address the merits of the lawsuit itself.

Apple has been involved in litigation with Epic for years.

Epic sued Apple in 2020 to diminish its control over transactions in applications based on the company’s iOS operating system and its restrictions affecting how apps get distributed to consumers.

Epic’s lawsuit was partly dismissed in September 2021 by Rogers, who ruled Epic failed to present sufficient evidence that Apple possessed unlawful monopoly power in a specific market that she described as “digital mobile gaming transactions.”

Rogers also held that year that Apple’s rules regarding its App Store ran afoul of California competition laws, and issued an injunction requiring the company to let developers embed links in their apps, allowing users to use non-Apple payment methods.

Apple permitted the links but introduced new conditions, such as a 27 percent commission on developers for purchases completed on payment systems outside the App Store within a week of clicking on a link.

Epic argued Apple’s commission violated the injunction, and on April 30, 2025, Rogers found Apple in civil contempt.

The judge said Apple was in “willful violation” of her 2021 injunction aimed at curbing the company’s allegedly anticompetitive practices.

Apple “willfully” failed to comply with the injunction “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,” she said.

“That it thought this Court would tolerate such insubordination was a gross miscalculation. … For this Court, there is no second bite at the apple,” Rogers said.

Apple, which denies wrongdoing and says it is obeying court orders, asked the Supreme Court in its petition on May 21 to consider two issues.

The company said the injunction should not apply to millions of developers because Epic is the sole plaintiff and the litigation is not a class action. Apple also said it should not be held in contempt for supposedly violating the “spirit” of an injunction that it argues did not specifically forbid the conduct in question.

In December 2025, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed the contempt finding but said Apple could present new arguments at the trial court level about what commission it should be permitted to charge for digital goods purchased in apps that are distributed through the App Store but paid for with third-party payment systems.

On May 6, Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan denied Apple’s separate emergency application to put proceedings in the Ninth Circuit on hold while its appeal progresses. Kagan did not explain her ruling.

Epic had filed a brief urging the Supreme Court not to accept Apple’s case.

After it was found in contempt, Apple responded with “evasion and defiance,” and “imposed a new commission on steered transactions set so high that Apple knew—and intended—that it would make steering financially infeasible,” the brief said.

A steered transaction is a purchase of digital services that a user has to make outside of Apple’s in-app payment, or IAP system, typically through an external website link provided in the app.

The brief said the district court found that Apple “outright lied” about how it calculated its commission, “falsely claiming that it had relied on an objective outside study … when in fact the study was ‘a sham’ that Apple ‘entirely manufactured’ for litigation.”

The Ninth Circuit held that the “prohibitive effect” of Apple’s commission—which guaranteed that “‘no rational developer would’ engage in steering—violated the text of the Injunction.”

The brief said the Supreme Court should reject Apple’s petition because that company violated the court order by levying a large fee on outside purchases and mischaracterizing the lower court decisions.

Apple hailed the high court’s decision to grant its petition.

“This is an important question of law, and we are pleased the Supreme Court will hear our case,” the company said.

Epic said at the Supreme Court it will fight what it described as the “junk fees Apple charges on third-party payments.”

Lower court judges have correctly “found Apple’s fees to be illegal and anticompetitive, and we’ll continue to defend free markets,” the company said.

The Supreme Court is expected to hold an oral argument in the case in its new term that begins in October. A decision could follow by June 2027.

Reuters contributed to this report.