Epic Games has filed its Supreme Court brief in the App Store contempt case, arguing that Apple’s fee on purchases made outside its apps was designed so that no developer would ever use outside payments. The case will be argued on 11 January 2027.
The fight is over what Apple did after a court barred it from stopping developers linking to other payment options. Epic says Apple answered with a 27% commission on those linked-out sales. Add the developer’s own payment costs, which Epic puts at more than 3%, and a web sale ends up costing more than the 30% Apple takes inside its own system. Epic says Apple could not name a single developer that chose to send customers to their own checkout and pay the fee.
The question the justices agreed to hear is narrow: can a party be held in contempt only when an order’s text names the exact conduct, or also when a reasonable reader would see the conduct as barred, including an attempt to get round the order by other means. Epic says the second reading is the long-standing one, and that Apple’s stricter test would let companies keep inventing new ways around an order.
Epic’s brief leans on what the trial court found, which it says Apple has not challenged as clearly wrong. It points to a report Apple commissioned to justify the 27% rate, which the court called a “sham” with an “entirely manufactured” rationale. It also cites Apple’s privilege claims over some 57,000 documents, which pulled in special masters, and the court’s finding that Apple’s Vice President of Finance “outright lied under oath” about when the commission was decided.
Epic also says the US government, which filed a brief supporting neither side, largely agrees with its legal test and agrees Apple should be held in contempt at least over some of its restrictions. Epic’s fallback is that if the justices tighten or restate the standard, the lower courts should apply it first instead of the finding being wiped out.
The Supreme Court docket shows how the case reached this point. The Court granted Apple’s petition on 30 June, limited to the first question it raised, and Apple filed its own brief on 14 September, alongside a run of friend-of-the-court briefs. Epic’s brief went in on 13 November.
Epic also describes how Apple’s design rules worked alongside the fee: it says they made links to outside payment pages hard to find and awkward to use. Together with the fee, it argues, they were meant to make sure no customer ever completed a purchase through a web link.
The justices hear the arguments on 11 January 2027.
