Apple is escalating its legal dispute with Epic Games by petitioning the Supreme Court for a review of the App Store fee limitations. The tech company’s move follows a lower court ruling that restricted its ability to charge fees on external payments.
In response to the latest development, Apple aims to halt the appeals court’s decision that constrained its ability to collect charges for transactions made outside its payment system.
The ongoing legal conflict originated when Epic Games introduced external payment options in its Fortnite app to circumvent Apple’s App Store fees. While Apple emerged victorious in the initial lawsuit in 2021, it was instructed to permit developers to incorporate external payment links.
Despite complying with the court order and enabling external payments, Apple imposed a 27% commission on purchases made through developers’ payment platforms, only marginally lower than its standard 30% fee. Conversely, Google recently settled a similar lawsuit with Epic Games, reducing its Play Store commissions to 20%.
Epic Games contested Apple’s 27% fee as non-compliant with the court directive, asserting that developers were not benefiting financially due to additional payment processing charges. Subsequently, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California found Apple in contempt, a ruling upheld by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in late 2025.
With no further recourse in the Ninth Circuit, Apple is now pursuing Supreme Court intervention to reconsider the ongoing legal disputes surrounding its App Store practices.
Source: TechCrunch