By Mike Scarcella
(Reuters) – Apple on Monday lodged an appeal to challenge a U.S. judge’s ruling that ordered the tech company to immediately open its lucrative App Store to more competition.
Apple in a court notice said it will ask the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to review the April 30 ruling, which found the company in contempt of an earlier order in a 2020 antitrust lawsuit brought by Epic Games.
U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers said in her decision that Apple willfully failed to comply with a 2021 injunction designed to allow developers to more easily steer consumers to potentially cheaper non-Apple payment options.
Gonzalez Rogers also referred Apple and one of its executives to federal prosecutors for a possible criminal contempt investigation. She refused to put her order on hold, accusing Apple of delaying and purposefully misleading the court.
“Apple sought to maintain a revenue stream worth billions in direct defiance of this court’s injunction,” Gonzalez Rogers said.
Apple had denied violating terms of the court’s order.
Apple and Epic Games did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Apple’s appeal notice did include its planned legal arguments.
The lawsuit by Epic Games, the maker of online video game Fortnite, aimed to loosen Apple’s grip over transactions in applications that use its iOS operating system and how apps are distributed to consumers.
Gonzalez Rogers ordered Apple to end several practices that she said were designed to circumvent her earlier injunction, including a new 27% fee it imposed on app developers when Apple customers complete an app purchase outside the App Store.
The judge also barred Apple from using so-called “scare screens” to deter consumers from using third-party payment options.
(Reporting by Mike Scarcella; Editing by Nia Williams and Chizu Nomiyama)
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