A US district judge has found Apple wilfully violated her injunction in a case brought by Epic Games – and that a top Apple executive “outright lied” under oath.The injunction was supposed to block Apple from anti-competitive conduct and pricing, opening the App Store up to outside payment options. Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers said she was referring the matter to the US Attorney for Northern District of California to investigate whether a criminal contempt proceeding is appropriate.Apple responded to the ruling late on Wednesday.”We strongly disagree with the decision. We will comply with the court’s order and we will appeal,” an Apple spokesperson said.Wednesday’s judgement refers to a 2021 case brought by Epic Games, the maker of Fortnite, one of the world’s most popular games, which argued that third-party payment options should be available to customers. It challenged the up-to-30% cut Apple takes from purchases – and argued that the App Store was monopolistic. In her 2021 judgement, Judge Gonzalez Rogers stated that Apple could no longer prohibit developers linking to their own purchasing mechanisms.As well as game purchasing, another example of how this would work is a movie-streaming service being able to tell customers to subscribe via its own website, without using Apple’s in-app purchasing mechanism.In a contempt order issued Wednesday, Judge Gonzalez Rogers found that Apple nevertheless continued to interfere with competition with attempts that the court stated “will not be tolerated”.Judge Gonzalez Rogers added that internal company documents she reviewed showed Apple deliberately violated the injunction.The documents reveal “that Apple knew exactly what it was doing and at every turn chose the most anticompetitive option”, she wrote.She said CEO Tim Cook ignored executive Phillip Schiller’s urging to have Apple comply …
