United States of America: US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued ruling in Epic Games v Apple affirming civil contempt finding and remanding on commission rate on linked-out purchases

On 11 December 2025, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued its ruling in Epic Games v Apple (No. 25-2935), affirming the district court's civil contempt finding against Apple and substantially affirming the 30 April 2025 ruling. The court had previously denied Apple's emergency motion for a partial stay pending appeal on 4 June 2025. The court held that Apple's 27% commission on linked-out purchases had a prohibitive effect in violation of the Injunction, finding no evidence that any developer had chosen to direct customers to their own purchasing mechanisms under that commission rate. The court further held that Apple's link design restrictions under the Link Entitlement program violated the Injunction, with two restrictions violating its strict letter and the remaining restrictions violating the Injunction's implicit command to refrain from action designed to defeat it. The court reversed the 30 April 2025 ruling's permanent ban on all commissions, finding it functioned as a punitive criminal contempt sanction rather than a civil remedy, and remanded to the district court to amend the commission prohibition as either a purgeable civil contempt sanction or a properly tailored modification of the Injunction. The court modified the 30 April 2025 ruling to permit Apple to restrict developers from placing buttons, links, or other calls to action in more prominent fonts, larger sizes, larger quantities, and more prominent places than Apple uses for its own, and to restrict developers from using language violating Apple's general content standards. The court held that the Injunction was not an impermissible nationwide injunction under Trump v CASA, 606 U.S. 831 (2025), and declined to vacate the Injunction on the basis of the California Court of Appeal's decision in Beverage v Apple, Inc., 101 Cal. App. 5th 736 (2024). The court denied Apple's request to reassign the case to a different judge on remand.