Apple VP Referred for Criminal Contempt After 'Outright Lies' in Epic Games Ruling

[Delgibbons]

In a scorching ruling against Apple, Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers on Wednesday accused an Apple finance executive of providing false testimony under oath during the company's ongoing legal battle with Epic Games.

The judge stated that Alex Roman, Apple's vice president of finance, gave testimony that was "replete with misdirection and outright lies" regarding when Apple decided on its controversial 27 percent commission fee for purchases made outside the App Store.

"Contemporaneous business documents reveal that on the contrary, the main components of Apple's plan, including the 27 percent commission, were determined in July 2023," wrote Gonzalez Rogers in her ruling. "Neither Apple, nor its counsel, corrected the, now obvious, lies."

The ruling is significant enough that Gonzalez Rogers is referring the case to a U.S. attorney for possible criminal contempt proceedings against both Apple and Roman.

The reduced 27 percent fee (down from Apple's standard 30%) was established after the 2021 Epic Games lawsuit ruling. Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers rejected claims that Apple operated a monopoly. However, she ruled that Apple's anti-steering conduct was anti-competitive, and ordered the company to allow developers to link to alternative payment methods outside the App Store.

Apple complied by creating a system where developers can apply for a "StoreKit External Purchase Link Entitlement" to direct users to external payment options. However, Apple still demands a 27% commission on these transactions made within seven days of clicking the link.

That's set to change though after Wednesday's ruling. The court now says Apple cannot collect any fee or commission for purchases that consumers make outside of an app, nor can it track, audit, or monitor consumer activity.

The judge didn't mince words in her assessment of Apple's behavior, writing that "Apple willfully chose not to comply with this Court's Injunction" and did so "with the express intent to create new anticompetitive barriers" to maintain its revenue stream.

"That it thought this Court would tolerate such insubordination was a gross miscalculation," she added. "As always, the cover-up made it worse. For this Court, there is no second bite at the apple."

The false testimony appears to have particularly aggravated the judge, who said in her ruling that the alleged deception compounded Apple's original violation of the anti-steering injunction.

In a brief statement, Apple said: "We strongly disagree with the decision. We will comply with the court's order and we will appeal."

Note: Due to the political or social nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Political News forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

Article Link: Apple VP Referred for Criminal Contempt After 'Outright Lies' in Epic Games Ruling

aahhhh.....If it isn't the cows starting to come home to roost.....

 

[jmonster]

FINALLY.

Apples greed isn't even the (primary) issue anymore, but their never ending Trump-level of over the top legal ******** is beyond disgusting.

They lose over and over again, appeal over and over again, try to redefine words and spend spend spend to game our system. All while they themselves execute the most absurdly strict, insensitive, inconsistent, and self-serving ecosystem around.

This judge's decree should be a celebrated holiday for Apple fans and haters alike.

 

[HurtinMinorKey]

Wow. Didn't see this coming. Apple needs to get its act together.

When the initial ruling came out, half the users here said “this changes nothing (effectively) about Apple’s ability to collect fees” while the rest of us were like “did you read the ruling? Of course they can’t charge fees outside the app”

So perhaps given the divide there was some justification about confusion,,but since then the judge has made it very clear

 

[PsykX]

Trump will come to Tim’s rescue again. That’s why he paid $1M.

Again? 🫠

So far he's damaged Apple stock more than anything else and he put the company in an actually really bad position vs competitors like Samsung. Apple had to face a lot more tariffs from Vietnam, India and China, than South Korea.

Now they've gained exemption on a couple of things, luckily, otherwise they were going downhill for sure.

 

[Macaholic868]

“Strongly disagree” all you want. Anybody with a brain could see Apple violated the spirit and the letter of the original order and if they lied under oath about it then whoever got on the stand and did the lying needs to pay the price just like you or I would.

Fining “the company” is now, and has always been, a huge nothing burger. This notion that companies are people is dumb. They are not. They are made up of people and when they “break the law” not only should they be heavily fined but the people who made the illegal decisions and carried out the illegal actions should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

Throw a couple of high level (preferable C-Level but you have to start somewhere) executives in prison for a few months and you’ll not only see the company get its act together quickly but it’ll actually start serving as a deterrent to other would be corporate criminals. It’s about effing time…

 

[ginkobiloba]

this is a major win for Tencent...uh...I meant Epic . Well , Tencent owns 40% of Epic, so...
Tencent is coming up with their own smartphones, app stores , pay systems etc...

Epic and Tim Sweeny are their Troy Horse to demolish the competition.

Waiting for infiltrated Epic's PR downvotes..

 

[pksv]

That could be a solution however it's a horrible one as nearly every app on my phone is free.

I'm not about to spend 0.99 to install Facebook, Whatsapp, banking apps, web browsers, home automation apps, social network apps etc.

The solution I suggested makes the most sense - you can't host a free app on their store where the only way to unlock the content is via a 3rd party payment link.

You can have a free app but in app purchases go through Apple or you can have a paid app but subscriptions, in app purchase, upgrades etc can all be purchased with a third party link cutting Apple out.

Even if there were multiple app stores worldwide they shouldn't allow you to do that. Remove the hardware from the equation. Steam, a hardware agnostic platform wouldn't let you sell a free app in their store and then have people unlock the game for free with a third party payment link - you pay your commission to be part of a store that users enjoy managing their library in, having payments all in one place, having it sync across devices, being able to discover your content, being hosted on their servers and taking advantage of their technology like shader sharing and updated universal libraries etc.

App Store is just a fancy cloud storage.

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$0.05 per GB

 

[jmonster]

Ooof that's a bit naughty from Apple.

Now that ruling is fine, however consider this scenario.

The app is free in the app store - the only way to unlock the features is via a third party payment link which now Apple has to provide for free.

So who is going to charge for an app in the app store when they can take all the profit via their third party payment link.

There needs to be some kind of rule where by it's fine to use third party payment links without Apple taking a fee however you can't host a free app in the store and the ONLY way to active its features is via a third party payment link.

That would be like being able to setup in Target with your own stall for free and take a mobile payment handset with you to charge for anything you sell giving Target nothing.

Why does Apple need to be guaranteed revenue? They sell a really expensive phone. They sell really expensive software, services, entertainment, etc.

Why do they HAVE to receive a tax on everything everyone else does? Because Steve Jobs came up with the phone, the corporation is perpetually entitled to tax us?

Maybe we should have other app stores, so Apple isn't forced to provide free apps?

Maybe websites should be allowed to serve/install apps, instead of being forced to use Apple's, since it's such a burden for them to allow free apps?

Or perhaps no one would want an Apple product if they couldn't access other peoples creations -- like Netflix, etc. maybe Apple isn't the main value if that's the case?

The whole thing is absurd. I've been using software on my Mac for decades without Apple getting a cut. But a phone, oh my, we better all protect Apples TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS from independent developers thinking they deserve anything but a handout.

 

[AppliedMicro]

That could be a solution however it's a horrible one as nearly every app on my phone is free.

I'm not about to spend 0.99 to install Facebook, Whatsapp, banking apps, web browsers, home automation apps, social network apps etc.

Since Apple spends time and money reviewing and hosting these apps, why would it be horrible? It'd be only fair, wouldn't it?

Remove the hardware from the equation. Steam, a hardware agnostic platform wouldn't let you sell a free app in their store and then have people unlock the game for free with a third party payment link - you pay your commission to be part of a store that users enjoy managing their library in, having payments all in one place, having it sync across devices, being able to discover your content, being hosted on their servers and taking advantage of their technology like shader sharing and updated universal libraries etc.

You can't just simply remove the hardware from the equation.

iPhone buyers "buy into" an operating system platform. They aren't going (and aren't free) to buy mobile apps elsewhere after having spent hundreds of dollars on a hardware purchase.

Also, Apple giving away access to their App Store for (almost) free played a big part in establishing their market position (duopoly with Google's Android) in the market for mobile operating systems.

The solution I suggested makes the most sense - you can't host a free app on their store where the only way to unlock the content is via a 3rd party payment link.

You can have a free app but in app purchases go through Apple or you can have a paid app but subscriptions, in app purchase, upgrades etc can all be purchased with a third party link cutting Apple out.

I could imagine Spotify, Netflix & Co. being OK with selling their iOS app for $0.99, if it enabled them to conduct their own transactions independent from Apple's App Store.

 

[Aeronauts]

This judge is not messing around with pointless fines. Good for her. Tim Cook might finally change his attitude if someone from Apple goes to jail for contempt of court.

 

[ThisIsMike]

“You cannot just ignore court rulings against you and rely on endless appeals to block a decision.”

Why not? Seems to work realllllly well for other folks. By the way, that’s not a political commentary, because I never named anyone in particular, and I used “folks,” which is plural and is indicative of multiple people. So if you’re thinking of anyone in particular, I would have to argue that is completely on you, and indicative of your own biases. Obviously 😊

If they aren't careful they will be forced to break up, it's happened to Microsoft, Alphabet may have to sell Google, your size does not protect you if you abuse your position as ruled in a court.

Yeah, they’ll definitely need to break up. One company to make Macs, one for iPhones.

 

[ginkobiloba]

Why does Apple need to be guaranteed revenue? They sell a really expensive phone. They sell really expensive software, services, entertainment, etc.

Why do they HAVE to receive a tax on everything everyone else does? Because Steve Jobs came up with the phone, the corporation is perpetually entitled to tax us?

Maybe we should have other app stores, so Apple isn't forced to provide free apps?

Maybe websites should be allowed to serve/install apps, instead of being forced to use Apple's, since it's such a burden for them to allow free apps?

Or perhaps no one would want an Apple product if they couldn't access other peoples creations -- like Netflix, etc. maybe Apple isn't the main value if that's the case?

The whole thing is absurd. I've been using software on my Mac for decades without Apple getting a cut. But a phone, oh my, we better all protect Apples TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS from independent developers thinking they deserve anything but a handout.

You're talking as if Apple are the only ones doing this. You know that getting a cut on software and services sold on your store is pretty much a universal practice , right?

Epic does it.
Google does it.
Microsoft does it
Sony ( Playstation ) does it
Nintendo ( store ) does it
Steam does it
Setapp does it
pretty much everyone on the planet does it.

EDIT : so people who disagree with this, is it because they actually believe Apple is the only company that takes a percentage on software sold on its stores ?

 

[d686546s]

That could be a solution however it's a horrible one as nearly every app on my phone is free.

I'm not about to spend 0.99 to install Facebook, Whatsapp, banking apps, web browsers, home automation apps, social network apps etc.

The solution I suggested makes the most sense - you can't host a free app on their store where the only way to unlock the content is via a 3rd party payment link.

You can have a free app but in app purchases go through Apple or you can have a paid app but subscriptions, in app purchase, upgrades etc can all be purchased with a third party link cutting Apple out.

But surely if the intent is to have Apple compensated for their IP, then what sense does it make that a customer who chooses Apple's IAP contributes to that and a customer who chooses the outside IAP does not. Either you apply a fee equally or you have no fee, independent of how you process payments, but you can't have your cake and eat it.

No one is actually saying that Apple shouldn't be compensated for its IP, but the business model they have chosen just doesn't seem to work anymore here.

Even if there were multiple app stores worldwide they shouldn't allow you to do that. Remove the hardware from the equation. Steam, a hardware agnostic platform wouldn't let you sell a free app in their store and then have people unlock the game for free with a third party payment link - you pay your commission to be part of a store that users enjoy managing their library in, having payments all in one place, having it sync across devices, being able to discover your content, being hosted on their servers and taking advantage of their technology like shader sharing and updated universal libraries etc.

The issue isn't taking the hardware out of the equation, per se, but that Apple has decided that the App Store should be, well, a store as well as the exclusive way to distribute software on iOS.

Decouple the operating system's dependency on the App Store and let other stores compete on equal footing and a lot of these issues probably evaporate, although of course discussion would probably have to account for the dominant status of the App Store in this particular market.

You mention Steam, but the comparison isn't really the same because I don't need Steam to buy games on PC. If developers don't want to sell their game on Steam, then they sell on GOG or Epic. Or just on their website. I can even play on my non-Steam games on my Steam Deck. I can even install Windows on that thing.

 

[pksv]

You're talking as if Apple are the only ones doing this. You know that getting a cut on software and services sold on your store is pretty much a universal practice , right?

Epic does it.
Google does it.
Microsoft does it
Sony ( Playstation ) does it
Nintendo ( store ) does it
Steam does it
Setapp does it
pretty much everyone on the planet does it.

Besides Sony and Nintendo on all the other you can load app without official app store. Even Apple does that on macos.

Edit: Actually not true. Even with Sony and Nintendo you have the ability to load up a game on a physical drive bypassing official app store.

 

[antiprotest]

Scapegoat

 

[Aeronauts]

Lying in court is a serious offence. I hope someone goes to prison.

 

[bluecoast]

FINALLY.

Apples greed isn't even the (primary) issue anymore, but their never ending Trump-level of over the top legal ******** is beyond disgusting.

They lose over and over again, appeal over and over again, try to redefine words and spend spend spend to game our system. All while they themselves execute the most absurdly strict, insensitive, inconsistent, and self-serving ecosystem around.

This judge's decree should be a celebrated holiday for Apple fans and haters alike.

Yeah. The sheer greed and sense of entitlement that Apple seems to have is ugly.

I’m glad that Phil Schiller came out well though. You could always see the genuine excitement and love for the products that he pitched at the keynotes.

I wonder what he’ll do? Resign? Stay around to be interim iCEO?

Tim Cook is iToast. He isn’t going to get out of this unscathed.

I’m betting that when that Roman guy plea bargains and reveals exactly what went on and who knew what he was going to lie about, it’s going to go very high up.

 

[Ctrlos]

It’s time for Tim Cook to resign.

He’s led Apple to this absolutely appalling state of affairs, completely messed up the transition to genai - which is the next big tech paradigm - and left Apple very overexposed in china, at a time of increasing tensions in that region.

I disagree. Aside from the very useful academic side of things, most GenAI platforms are designed to be giant internet photocopiers that hoover up VC capital with no hope of a return. Apple's approach, building another Spotlight instead of another Google is the right one.

Apple won't build their own internet photocopier because it treads on the toes of its historic creative community, abandons their privacy standpoint and climate goals and potentially could replace their lucrative app marketplace with one centralised system.

They never lost out because they didn't build a search engine and AI is no different. Outsource it as a plugin and let someone else burn the billions.

Apple deserve their punishment for the OP, but they are the Porsche of smartphones. You buy a Porsche because its not a Polestar.

 

[StuBeck]

Ooof that's a bit naughty from Apple.

Now that ruling is fine, however consider this scenario.

The app is free in the app store - the only way to unlock the features is via a third party payment link which now Apple has to provide for free.

So who is going to charge for an app in the app store when they can take all the profit via their third party payment link.

There needs to be some kind of rule where by it's fine to use third party payment links without Apple taking a fee however you can't host a free app in the store and the ONLY way to active its features is via a third party payment link.

That would be like being able to setup in Target with your own stall for free and take a mobile payment handset with you to charge for anything you sell giving Target nothing.

Eh, I'm fine with it. They make tens of billions of dollars doing absolutely nothing. Stop protecting multi-trillion dollar companies that don't care about what you think.

 

[bluecoast]

I disagree. Aside from the very useful academic side of things, most GenAI platforms are designed to be giant internet photocopiers that hoover up VC capital with no hope of a return. Apple's approach, building another Spotlight instead of another Google is the right one.

Apple won't build their own internet photocopier because it treads on the toes of its historic creative community, abandons their privacy standpoint and climate goals and potentially could replace their lucrative app marketplace with one centralised system.

They never lost out because they didn't build a search engine and AI is no different. Outsource it as a plugin and let someone else burn the billions.

Apple deserve their punishment for the OP, but they are the Porsche of smartphones. You buy a Porsche because it’s not a Polestar.

Ok. Putting aside the ethics of how cloud genai chatbots are put together - and I agree, their origins are murky with probable copyright infringements across the board…

However:

The fact that I can have a complex (verbal) conversation with ChatGPT with ChatGPT coming up with very useful and original thinking and Siri STILL struggles to so anything much useful at all, with setting a timer seemingly still one of its more advanced features.

This in 2025 isn’t just dropping the ball, it’s a major strategic fail.

Genai isn’t a gimmick but it’s the next phase in computing - the pc, the internet, smartphones and now genai.

I’m going to state that apple are now on a downward slope and it’s all their own failings. No one outcompeted them. They did it to themselves.

 

[Ctrlos]

That could be a solution however it's a horrible one as nearly every app on my phone is free.

I'm not about to spend 0.99 to install Facebook, Whatsapp, banking apps, web browsers, home automation apps, social network apps etc.

The solution I suggested makes the most sense - you can't host a free app on their store where the only way to unlock the content is via a 3rd party payment link.

You can have a free app but in app purchases go through Apple or you can have a paid app but subscriptions, in app purchase, upgrades etc can all be purchased with a third party link cutting Apple out.

Even if there were multiple app stores worldwide they shouldn't allow you to do that. Remove the hardware from the equation. Steam, a hardware agnostic platform wouldn't let you sell a free app in their store and then have people unlock the game for free with a third party payment link - you pay your commission to be part of a store that users enjoy managing their library in, having payments all in one place, having it sync across devices, being able to discover your content, being hosted on their servers and taking advantage of their technology like shader sharing and updated universal libraries etc.

The majority of customers won't use the external links though. They're either too technophobic (not a jibe), have no idea if said IAP link will even work in future or cannot track their licences. Doing things straight through the app store is still the most safe convenient pethod and convenience always wins.

 

[SanderEvers]

It’s more like Apple is a town and the developers are the businesses. If Apple didn’t have independent developers creating apps for their platform, no one would live there. And we all know Apple makes a killing on its hardware anyway.

And in a town the business pays taxes to be able to run their business there. So why shouldn't Apple be able to ask apps to pay a tax for their store?

 

[Ctrlos]

Ok. Putting aside the ethics of how cloud genai chatbots are put together - and I agree, their origins are murky with probable copyright infringements across the board…

However:

The fact that I can have a complex (verbal) conversation with ChatGPT with ChatGPT coming up with very useful and original thinking and Siri STILL struggles to so anything much useful at all, with setting a timer seemingly still one of its more advanced features.

This in 2025 isn’t just dropping the ball, it’s a major strategic fail.

Genai isn’t a gimmick but it’s the next phase in computing - the pc, the internet, smartphones and now genai.

I’m going to state that apple are now on a downward slope and it’s all their own failings. No one outcompeted them. They did it to themselves.

To play devils advocate for a minute, only a third of Apple customers ever even use Siri and even less have use for a conversational AI that can rewrite instruction manuals or perform complex equations on experimental data.

Apple are the richest company on the planet and there is always, always a strategic business decision behind everything they do (for better or worse). I see a lot of complaints about how comparitively dumb Siri is but very few asking why this might be.

It remains likely that Apple's user data showed them that barely anyone is using Siri for anything other than egg timers and reminders so they diverted R&D funding elsewhere. Why spend money improving a product the market was not asking to be any better?

Someone will mention the oft-rumoured 'Apple Car' but not realise that they were never thinking about releasing an automobile. It was only ever a platform for their machine learning and sensor arrays (thing Vision Pro) to collect real-world data without revealing the product in question.

 

[Kal Madda]

I’m sick and tired of politicians and judges who are clearly ignorant about how technology works trying to bully tech companies. It’s Apple’s platform, Apple has the right to have requirements for distributing software on their platform…

 

[Kal Madda]

And in a town the business pays taxes to be able to run their business there. So why shouldn't Apple be able to ask apps to pay a tax for their store?

Exactly. It’s Apple’s platform, they have every right to have requirements for distributing on their platform… 👍🏻