Apple referred to possible criminal diseeming tests for possible criminal

An American district judge has discovered that Apple has deliberately violated its order in a case that has been tightened by epic games – and that a top apple other “outright” lye “under oath.

The command should block Apple for anti-competitive behavior and prices, which opened the App Store for external payment options.

Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers said that she is referring the case to the American lawyer for the Northern District of California to investigate whether a criminal contempt procedure is suitable.

In response, an Apple spokesperson said: “We very disagree with the decision. We will comply with the order of the court and we will appeal.”

Wednesday’s opinion refers to a case from 2021 that was applied by Epic Games, the maker of Fortnite, one of the world’s most popular games, who argued that third -party payment options should be available to customers.

It challenged the up to 30% that Apple took from purchases and carried out that the App Store was monopolistic.

In her opinion of 2021, Judge Gonzalez Rogers stated that Apple could no longer prohibit developers who link to their own purchasing mechanisms.

In addition to buying games, another example of how this would work is a film streaming service that can tell customers to subscribe via its own website, without using Apple’s in-app purchasing mechanism.

In a contemporary warrant that was published on Wednesday, Judge Gonzalez Rogers discovered that Apple nevertheless continued to disturb the competition with attempts that the court stated “will not be tolerated”.

Judge Gonzalez Rogers added that internal business documents they assessed demonstrated that Apple intentionally violated the order.

The documents reveal “that Apple knew exactly what it was doing and opted for the most competition for every turn,” she wrote.

She said that CEO Tim Cook ignored the manager Phillip Schiller to let Apple meet the order and CFO Luca Maestri allowed him to convince him.

“Cook chose badly,” she wrote.

She also said that Apple Vice-President of Finance Alex Roman “downright lied under the oath”.

The judge wrote that an example of Apple’s attempts to avoid the order included a decision to accuse a committee of 27% of off-app, when it had previously noticed nothing.

The company also imposed new barriers and requirements to discourage customers from using competitive purchasing platforms, she said.

In a post on X, Epic Games founder and CEO Tim Sweney said that his company would return Fortnite to the US iOS App Store and offer an olive branch to its old rival next week.

“Epic raises a peace proposal: if Apple expands the friction-free, apple-tax-free framework of the court worldwide, we will reduce ‘Fortnite’ ‘Fortnite’ worldwide and drop the current and future lawsuits on the subject,” Sbeeney wrote.

In another message he wrote: “No costs for web transactions. Game over for the Apple Tax. Apple’s 15-30% junk costs are now just as dead here in the United States of America as in Europe under the Digital Market Act. I illegal here, illegal there.”