The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has partially upheld Apple’s appeal in a years-long legal dispute with Epic Games, allowing the company to charge a commission on purchases made through third-party payment systems.
The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has partially upheld Apple’s appeal in a years-long legal dispute with Epic Games, allowing the company to charge a commission on purchases made through third-party payment systems.
According to Engadget, the judges generally upheld the contempt ruling regarding Apple’s external payment policy, but struck down a key provision that prohibited the company from charging any fees for such transactions. It was this restriction that Apple sought to challenge by filing an emergency motion with the appellate court.
This is a development of Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers' decision in Epic Games v. Apple. In 2021, she ordered Apple to allow developers to use alternative payment instruments, but did not declare the App Store a monopoly. In May 2025, the judge concluded that the 27 percent fee that Apple actually applied to external payments violated her previous order. This became the basis for a new round of appeals.
The Ninth Circuit’s ruling means that Apple is no longer bound by a blanket ban on fees outside the App Store. At the same time, the court did not remove the company’s obligation to allow alternative payment methods, so developers can still formally offer other payment methods to users. However, Apple’s ability to charge even for such payments preserves significant control over the financial model of the iOS ecosystem.
The conflict between Apple and Epic Games began in 2020 after Epic added its own payment system to Fortnite, bypassing the App Store’s fees. In response, Apple removed the game from the store. During the legal proceedings, Fortnite disappeared from both the App Store and Google Play, but returned to iOS in the spring and recently became available again on Android.
Previously, dev.ua wrote about how Google and Epic Games filed a joint plan with the San Francisco federal court that should end their antitrust dispute and formally enshrine new rules for Android and Google Play.
