Apple referred to the criminal prosecutor in the “frustrating” order to change App Store

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Apple has been derived from a criminal prosecutor by a federal judge who found that the technological giant “deliberately frustrated” his legal order that he demanded that he change the rules of the application store in the United States.

Wednesday’s shameless order, in which the judge found that one of Apple’s finance executives lied under an oath to cover an attempt to avoid the order, marked an impressive reproach to the iPhone manufacturer and a new turn in his long legal battle with Epic game.

)Apple he voluntarily chosen to not fulfill. . . With the express intention of creating new anti-complaining barriers, which, by design and in fact, would maintain a valued income flow, “wrote the Federal Judge of California, Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers.

It was “a bad gross calculation,” he wrote. “As always, the coverage was worse.”

“The court refers to the subject to the United States prosecutor of the Northern California district to investigate whether the criminal disdain procedures are adequate,” he wrote, adding that Apple must fulfill the “effectively effective” arrangement and leave his new fees.

The ordinance comes from a high -profile antitropust claim Epic Games filed against Apple in 2020. The iPhone manufacturer greatly defeated the case in court and in subsequent resources.

But the company still faced an order under the California Act that required the change of rules from preventing developers from running customers outside the APP store, where they can avoid Apple’s surcharge in digital payments, up to 30 percent for some products.

Apple’s App Store is a growing part of his service business and generated $ 8.6 million in world revenue in the first quarter of the year, according to Tower Sensor estimates.

Apple can turn against the order. Did not respond immediately to a comment request.

The decision to refer a company to a criminal prosecutor in a civil antimonopoli case was unusual, said Gary Bornstein, an EPIC Games lawyer. “I have never seen it before.”

Apple changed its rules in response to the judge’s order, creating a mechanism to allow developers to direct consumers to make purchases outside the application, for example on the developer’s website. But he continued to look for a 27 percent commission on these purchases, demanding developers to inform the company sales.

Epic Games stated that this and other measures that Apple made the developers discourage the option to use the option and, therefore, violated the order. Several Apple executives testified in a hearing in February about their efforts to fulfill. An initial hearing in May 2024 was postponed after the judge requested more internal documents from the iPhone manufacturer.

On Wednesday, Gonzalez Rogers said that Apple had created his fulfillment plan with the aim of maintaining a multimillionary income flow creating new barriers to block customers at his App Store.

“To hide the truth, Finance Vice President Alex Roman lied directly under oath,” the judge wrote. The documents discovered during the case revealed that “Apple knew exactly what I did and each turn chose the most anti-Competive option.”

Phil Schiller, a senior Apple executive who testified before the judge earlier this year, had argued that Apple had new rates, found the judge.

But the CEO Tim Cook “ignored Schiller and allowed (then) the financial director Luca Maestri and his finance team to be convinced in a different way,” the judge found. “Cook chose badly.”

Maestri left his role as CFO earlier this year.

Tim Sweeney, CEO of Epic Games, said on Wednesday that the company would return its popular Fortnite Game at the App Store next week. Apple pulled out the store when Epic deliberately passed his payment policies in August 2020.

Apple has faced a similar pressure in Europe over its App Store rules. Earlier this month the EU Fined the technology group 500 million euros In order not to fulfill the regulations that similarly require it to allow applications developers to direct consumers to offer their platform.