U.S. Supreme Court to Hear Apple's Appeal in Epic Games Contempt Battle Over App Store Rules

The Supreme Court will consider Apple’s challenge to a ruling holding it in civil contempt in its years-long legal war with Epic Games, the iPhone maker and the maker of the “Fortnite” game.

The case has revolved around the rules governing Apple’s App Store and its compliance with a 2021 order that it must let developers direct users to other ways to pay for purchases.

Apple changed its rules to allow external payment links but said developers still have to pay it a commission of 27% for purchases made through those external systems within seven days. Epic Games said that amounted to the same thing – Apple maintained control over app payments and violated the spirit of the ruling, and a federal judge agreed in 2025. A federal appeals court later affirmed the judge’s decision.

Apple says that it complied with the ruling and that the courts went too far in expanding its meaning and told them what to do about millions of developers not involved in the case.

The court is expected to hear the case in its next term, starting in October 2026. It’s possible that in an expanded role for the court, the justices could have the opportunity to wrestle with questions about judicial authority and whether the judges correctly stepped in in an antitrust case involving an injunction.

Apple’s clash with Epic began in 2020 when the game maker made the decision to try to bypass Apple’s in-app payment system, allowing customers to purchase in-game items directly from Epic, rather than through Apple. When Apple removed Fortnite from the App Store, Epic brought a lawsuit accusing the tech giant of using an illegal monopoly in app sales and distribution on iPhones.

The judge presiding over the original case sided with Epic to some degree in 2020, finding Apple broke California’s unfair competition law with its restrictions on where app developers could direct consumers, and ordering Apple to allow developers to tell their users about other payment options. That ruling is the heart of this dispute.

The outcome of this case is likely to have widespread implications for app developers, consumers, and even governments, which are scrutinizing Apple, Google and other Big Tech companies and how they run their app stores and what they charge. If Apple wins, it’ll probably have a lot more freedom in what it can do with commissions and its own terms for external payments. If Epic wins, developers might have much more freedom to make transactions outside of Apple's ecosystem without being dinged for the price Apple feels it should be paid.

For Apple, the billions of dollars it pulls in from its App Store, one of its more profitable business lines, could be on the line.

This is about more than just a legal battle between two companies. Apple vs. Epic is a fight that will decide the fate of online commerce.