Apple’s App Store Antitrust Fight
Apple’s long, bitter App Store antitrust war continues to be a live regulatory headache that boards must monitor — the dispute illustrates how platform governance, developer ecosystems, and global compliance escalate into sustained oversight issues for directors. The column lays out the evolving legal and strategic stakes for platform companies. (theverge.com)
Jan. 16, 2024: the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the appeals in Epic Games v. Apple, leaving the lower‑court injunction requiring some developer steering and disclosure rules in place. (techcrunch.com) April 30, 2025: U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers found Apple willfully violated that injunction, ordered enforcement measures and referred Apple and a senior finance executive to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for a potential criminal contempt probe. (cnbc.com) Dec. 11, 2025: a Ninth Circuit panel largely affirmed the district court’s restrictions but reversed or remanded as overbroad the bans on commissions and link‑design limits, directing lower courts to tailor the injunction’s scope. (cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov) The European Commission’s DMA review recorded compliance issues with Apple’s App Store as of March 7, 2024, and Apple rewrote EU App Store terms on June 26, 2025 as part of a response to that regulatory pressure. (ec.europa.eu) Apple’s policy changes introduced external‑payment entitlements while imposing a tiered charge model that in practice included a 27% commission (12% for some small‑business participants) and, in EU filings, a multi‑part fee design (acquisition fees and store/core commissions). (gamesindustry.biz) Parallel federal enforcement and litigation remain active: the U.S. (with multiple states) filed a civil case against Apple in D. New Jersey on March 21, 2024, and a long‑running consumer class action that had been certified was decertified by Judge Gonzalez Rogers on Oct. 27, 2025. (courtlistener.com)
