A federal judge says that Apple violated a court order requiring it to open up the App Store to third-party payment options and must stop charging commissions on purchases outside its software marketplace, reports Bloomberg.
And her ruling referred the tech giant o prosecutors for a possible criminal probe. Alex Roman, Apple’s vice president of finance, purportedly lied on the witness stand.
Bloomberg notes that US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers sided Wednesday with Fortnite developer Epic Games over its allegation that Apple failed to comply with an order she issued in 2021 after finding the company engaged in anticompetitive conduct in violation of California law.
Gonzalez Rogers also referred the case to federal prosecutors to investigate whether Apple committed criminal contempt of court for flouting her 2021 ruling. The US attorney’s office in San Francisco declined to comment.
In Wednesday’s ruling, the judge said Apple tried to cover up its noncompliance with her 2021 order.
“After two sets of evidentiary hearings, the truth emerged,” Gonzalez Rogers wrote. “Apple, despite knowing its obligations thereunder, thwarted the injunction’s goals, and continued its anticompetitive conduct solely to maintain its revenue stream.”
As for Roman, she said, “He even went so far as to testify that Apple did not look at comparables to estimate the costs of alternative payment solutions that developers would need to procure to facilitate linked-out purchases,” Gonzalez Rogers wrote, saying Apple did consider exactly that.”
Because the company and its lawyers did not correct Roman’s testimony, “Apple will be held to have adopted the lies and misrepresentations to this court,” the judge wrote.
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