On Wednesday, May 1, 2025, Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California held Apple in contempt, saying the tech giant “willfully chose not to comply with this court’s injunction” from 2021, doing so “with the express intent to create new anticompetitive barriers” and that “Apple engaged in tactics to delay the proceedings. The Court later concluded that delay equaled profits.” Four years ago, Judge Rogers ruled in the Epic Games case that Apple must permit developers to provide users with payment options outside the App Store.

The following statement can be attributed to Sumit Sharma, Executive Director for NextGen Competition (nextgencomp.tech):

“Judge Rogers has rightly called out Apple’s dissembling, concealment of information, and malicious compliance - behavior that the company has exhibited not just in the United States, but worldwide. I commend her for holding Apple, Tim Cook, and other executives accountable for this pattern of dishonest conduct.

Apple has consistently prioritized profits over the developer ecosystem that creates the majority of value for iPhone users. The result? Degraded services and higher prices. Instead of appealing the ruling, Apple should comply and focus on innovating - where is the intelligent Siri we were all promised in its ads?

Complying isn’t just the right thing to do, it’s required by law. As Judge Rogers made clear, “This is an injunction, not a negotiation.”

About NextGen Competition

NextGen Competition is on a mission to create a fair and competitive technology ecosystem that empowers consumers, workers, and small businesses by supporting robust enforcement of antitrust laws and policies. Our aim is to enable many independent technology companies to innovate, compete, and offer differentiated services, and to rectify the profound imbalance of power that allows the largest technology firms to unilaterally set terms and conditions for everyone, use our data, and capture our attention without meaningful constraints.