Apple faces potential criminal charges after a federal judge ruled that the technology giant violated an antitrust order regarding the limitations of application stores – and singled out CEO Tim Cook for allegedly refusing its MP councils to implement the ruling.
In an explosive ruling on Wednesday, US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers wrote that Cook “chose poorly” when he directed his allegations to suspect that he opposed a court order regarding Apple’s long dispute with epic games.
Manufacturer “Fortnite” accused Apple of anticompetitive behavior while imposing solid developers tariffs, resulting in an order of 2021 requiring Apple to allow developers to offer users alternative ways to pay services and reconciliations outside the application store.
According to Rogers, Apple’s internal discussions revealed that elderly leaders, including Phillip Schiller, Apple’s senior marketing vice president, pushed the company to enforce the court order, but that Cook was finally leaning with his finance team in pursuing another way.
“Inside, Phillip Schiller had defended Apple to agree with the order, but Tim Cook ignored Schiller and instead allowed the chief of financial officer Luca Maestri and his finance team to persuade him differently,” the judge wrote in a harsh thought.
“Cook chose poorly.”
Rogers also accused another senior Apple executive, Alex Roman, of having “fully lied” during the legal battle of the iPhone creator with epic games on its controversial App Store fees.
“To hide the truth … novel … fully lied under oath,” wrote Rogers, stating that Apple “adopted lies and abuses in this court.”
In the extraordinary ruling, Rogers, which was named after Barack Obama, made it clear that this was not a case of misunderstanding or neglect.
The evidence “more than they meet the clear and persuasive standard of finding a violation,” decided Rogers while it referred to the case in the US lawyer’s office to consider charges of criminal contempt against Apple and the respective individuals.
“This is an order, not an negotiation. There is no action because a willful party does not accept a court order,” Rogers wrote.
In response, Apple issued a statement saying, “We do not strongly agree with the decision. We will respect the court order and appeal.”
The novel did not respond to requests for comment.
The 2021 order at the center of the legal battle of Apple Epic banned the technology to prevent developers from incorporating in their applications “buttons, external links or other acts” that direct users to alternative purchasing methods outside the application.
The company was also forbidden to stop developers from communicating with customers “through the contact points voluntarily received by customers through account recording within the app.”
The novel, which bears the title of Apple’s Deputy Chairman, was accused by the judge of fraudting the court about the company’s controversial commission 27% for purchases made outside the application store.
According to court documents, the novel has falsely proved that Apple did not appreciate the costs that developers would face when using alternative payment methods for related purchases.
However, the judge revealed that Apple had in fact considered those external costs and deliberately set his high commission to overcome them, undermining the credibility of the novel’s request.
The novel also told the court that Apple had not decided what fee to impose on these purchases until January 16, 2024.
The judge dismissed this statement as another lie, citing internal business data that showed that Apple had already defined the key elements of his plan – including the 27% commission – again in July 2023.
Utilizing Apple Epic Disputes in epic games challenging Apple’s control over its application store and payment system within the app, accusing the technology giant for anti-incompeting behavior after Apple removed the popular “Fortnite” game to bypass its 30%commission.
Although Apple mainly prevailed in the wider case of antitrust, EPIC provided a significant release at this specific point aimed at curb Apple’s predominance over digital trade in iOS.
In effect immediately, Rogers ordered Apple to cease to collect commissions for purchases made through external links within applications.
She also led the company to cover Epic Games’s legal tariffs on the issue of contempt.
Director General of Tim Sweeney Epic Games welcomed the ruling as a milestone for app developers.
“It’s a great victory for developers,” he said in a conference call. “This forces Apple to compete. That’s what we loved all together.”
Additional report by Thomas Barrabi
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