Appeal lodged: Apple fights for its billions in commissions

The next round in the major dispute between Apple and Epic Games: On Monday, Apple filed an appeal against the recent decision of a US court that forced the company to make radical rule changes to the App Store, which is centralized on iPhones (Epic vs. Apple, United States District Court For The District Of Northern California, case number 4:20-cv-05640-YGR). The case is now to go back before the competent appeals court in San Francisco (United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit). It remains to be seen how Apple will defend itself against last week's decision.

US judge raps Apple on the knuckles

The case is actually long over: Epic lost the antitrust proceedings against Apple by a landslide – in both the first and second instance. The US Supreme Court did not want to deal with the matter afterward. However, an almost four-year-old injunction ruling remained open, forcing Apple to allow apps to provide information about direct purchase options for digital content and to link to them. This should ultimately enable competition. Apple implemented this on paper, but attached new rules and conditions to the linking – and at the same time demanded a commission on web purchases.

Instead of implementing the injunction, Apple kept coming up with new requirements in order to secure its "illegal source of income" from commissions, the US judge complained on May 1. She ruled that Apple must now comply with the injunction without further delay. The company is also no longer allowed to integrate so-called scare sheets into its operating systems, which are intended to deter users, and Apple is therefore also not allowed to charge a commission on such web purchases.

Dam break in the US app store

The first providers of popular apps reacted immediately: Spotify has now integrated links into its streaming app in the USA to sell its subscriptions directly to Apple. Epic Games was obviously also prepared and has set up a backend for payments that game developers can use – for a lower commission. Indie developers were also pleased with the enforced change. Service providers such as Stripe also offer iOS developers simple ways to accept payments.

For Apple, this puts revenues at risk that could reach into the billions. The services business has been the Group's last major growth business for several years. Income from commissions is at stake not only in the USA, but also in other regions: The EU Commission recently imposed a fine of 500 million euros on Apple precisely because of these link restrictions and the commissions on web purchases linked to them. The company must also change its rules for apps. Here too, the company intends to appeal.

(lbe)