Apple has, finally, thrown down its marker. In a court filing filed recently, the tech giant indicated that it will be levying commissions of 15% for any transactions taking place through apps not available through the App Store, thus bringing an end, potentially, to the longest-running antitrust battle in tech. To comprehend how important this number is, however, we have to flashback to 2020.
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In August 2020 on the 13th of the month, Epic Games rolled out an update for the game which allowed players to purchase V-Bucks through Epic Games’ own platform without ever using the payments gateway provided by Apple, thus avoiding the 30 percent fee. This was a planned strategy known as ‘Project Liberty.’ Apple swiftly removed Fortnite from its App Store. Epic sued in court and put out a new commercial which parodied Apple’s famous ‘1984’ advertisement.
The trial lasted until May 2021, and its verdict was announced in September that year. While Apple prevailed on 9 of 10 counts and defended itself against most antitrust allegations, Epic was successful in one key allegation based on California’s laws: according to Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers’ decision, Apple’s anti-steering policies violated antitrust laws by restricting app developers from linking to other payment methods.
Both sides have appealed their rulings. The Ninth Circuit upheld the verdict in 2023, and the Supreme Court refused to hear the appeal case in January 2024. Apple was forced to allow link-outs, and the Fortnite app came back to the App Store several weeks after.
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And here’s where things go bad for Apple. Rather than permitting free link-outs, it instituted a 27% commission on purchases made through links to external sites, which was not much less than the 30% charged for in-app purchases, as well as intimidating screens that told users not to click on links to external websites.
Gonzalez Rogers issued her 80-page demolition of Apple’s compliance effort in April 2025. She ruled that Apple had been in willful violation of the injunction, that an Apple finance executive had lied in her testimony, and that both should be reported to federal prosecutors as possible subjects of criminal contempt proceedings. Her ruling prohibited the 27% commission and forbade Apple from controlling the look and functioning of the link-out buttons. This is considered one of the strongest decisions that a US court ever made against Big Tech.
Apple sought to stay the proceedings while waiting for a Supreme Court decision regarding the finding of contempt against Apple. The Supreme Court rejected this motion to stay proceedings on August 13, 2026, just six years to the day after the initial Fortnite hotfix incident. Apple was forced to submit its proposal that 15% should be charged for normal apps, 10% for services such as News and Video partnerships and subscriptions, and 5% for small business program apps.
Apple is hoping to compare its proposed fees to those already in place at Google Play. These fees also vary and were agreed to by Epic themselves. The next issue to be determined will be whether or not Epic accepts any such framework at all. Apple’s Supreme Court brief is due on September 14.