- A federal court held Apple in civil contempt in May 2025 for charging developers a 27%% commission on payments made outside the App Store.
- Apple appealed all the way to the Supreme Court once before — and got rejected in January 2024.
- Now Apple its back, filing a motion to stay the mandate on April 3, 2026, after exhausting every Ninth Circuit option.
Apple keeps trying to have it both ways. And the courts keep refusing to let it.
The latest chapter in the Epic Games v. Apple saga landed on April 3, 2026, when Apple filed a motion to stay the mandate pending another petition to the U.S. Supreme Court — its second attempt to get the countrys highest court to weigh in on the App Stores fee structure. This comes after the Ninth Circuit unanimously denied Apples rehearing request on March 30, closing the door on another losing round in one of the most protracted antitrust battles in tech history.
The core dispute is almost absurdly simple: Apple was found in civil contempt in May 2025 for charging developers 27%% on purchases made through external payment links — a workaround so obviously defiant that Apples own executive Phil Schiller reportedly admitted in court the fee likely violated the court order.
“I had great concerns about the collections of funds from developers,” Schiller said during his testimony.
The Ninth Circuit agreed in December 2025, saying the charge “effectively defeated the purpose” of letting developers route customers elsewhere. Almost no developers used the external links. Why would they, when Apple was still pocketing nearly the same cut?
Apples Legal Gambit: If You Cant Win, Argue the Rules Dont Apply
Whats notable isnt just that Apple keeps losing — its how its choosing to lose. The companys appeal isnt really about whether the 27%% fee was reasonable. Its a broader challenge to the legal standards themselves. Apple argues that parties cant be held in contempt for violating the “spirit” of an injunction when the text is silent on the specific conduct. It also contends — leaning on the Supreme Courts recent Trump v. CASA decision — that the original injunction was too broad, sweeping in developers who never had any intention of using external payment links.
Its a clever legal strategy, even if it reads as somewhat tone-deaf. Apples position essentially boils down to: the court told us to allow external payments, but it didnt specify how much we could charge for the privilege of using them, so any charge is fair game. Courts havent bought that argument so far. The Supreme Court declined a different aspect of this case in January 2024, which doesnt bode well for Apples new petition — but it hasnt stopped trying.
Meanwhile, Nintendo took its own shot at the Supreme Court over a trade ruling in February 2026, so the court has been receptive to tech-adjacent petitions lately. Whether thats enough for Apple remains to be seen.
The Money on the Table Is Bigger Than Most Companies Entire Revenue
Whatever your view of App Store antitrust, the stakes are enormous. Apple generates tens of billions of dollars annually from App Store commissions. The company has argued that its 27%% fee “reflects the value” of its ecosystem — hosting, discovery, developer tools, software infrastructure. Critics say thats a convenient framing that conveniently ignores that developers already pay for those services through the App Stores standard terms.
The timing matters too. As AI agents and chatbots become a larger part of how consumers discover and pay for digital goods, the question of who controls the payment layer becomes existential. If AI agents start routing purchases around the App Store entirely, Apples commission structure could face pressure that no court ruling ever managed to create. For Apple, this Supreme Court appeal isnt just about one contempt finding — its about locking in its economic model for the next decade.
Epic Games, for its part, has already settled the comparable Android case with Google, dropping Play Store commissions to 20%%. Apple has no intention of following that lead voluntarily. Which means this fight, like all the best ones, is going to keep going.
