Apple can't seem to catch a break at the moment. It keeps appealing and it keeps losing. Now its appeal against an injunction that called for it to reduce fees for external in app purchases has been rejected.

The Epic suit against Apple for alleged anti-trust violations related to the App Store seems to have been going on forever - mainly because Apple keeps appealing and losing. Most recently Apple was found in contempt of an injunction that allowed developers to accept direct payments from users. Apple did implement this, but took a 27% "Apple tax" on every transaction and put many obstacles in the way of the user. 

"The first question is whether charging a 27% commission has a prohibitive effect, in violation of the Injunction. We agree with the district court that it does."

It turns out that it is the size of the commission that is the issue:

"That being said, it would be difficult to say that all commissions violate the Injunction, and, as discussed below, we decline to do so. However, Apple did not charge any commission; it charged a prohibitive commission. The district court did not abuse its discretion for finding Apple in contempt for imposing it."

The court feels that it would be wrong to prohibit Apple from charging any commission on links to purchases on other websites. It only bans "prohibitive" commissions that make external purchases not competitive. That is, by choosing 27%, Apple reasons that the typical 3% cost of an external purchase would make it better to use Apple's direct sales at 30% commission.  The important part of the ruling is the "we decline to do so". 

Instead of telling Apple how much to charge, the ruling leaves it to the concerned parties:

"Apple should not be able to charge any commission for linked-out purchases until such time as the district court has approved an appropriate fee, but both parties should be encouraged to reach agreement and/or seek the court’s approval of its proposed fee expeditiously;"

This basically means that it is down to Tim Sweeny, Epic's CEO, to work it out with Apple. He is on record saying that the percentage should be very low, about 1%, but what Epic can afford might be different to what the first-time Apple dev thinks is reasonable. 

So far, few developers have opted to run their own purchasing facilities, but this could change. If it does, Apple might see a drop in its revenues. At the moment the wider world doesn't seem to have noticed this.

More Information

https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2025/12/11/25-2935.pdf

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