Overview
- The Supreme Court on Tuesday, June 30, 2026 agreed to review only Apple’s challenge to a lower‑court civil contempt finding that said the company violated a 2021 injunction about developer links to external payments.
- The dispute began after a 2021 order required Apple to let developers link to outside payment options and Apple responded by allowing links while imposing new restrictions, including a reported 27% commission on purchases made through external systems.
- In April 2025 Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers found Apple in civil contempt for those changes and barred Apple from collecting the out‑of‑App commissions, a ruling the Ninth Circuit largely upheld in December while sending fee questions back to district court.
- The Supreme Court limited its review to the contempt question and declined to take up Apple’s separate argument that the injunction should not apply universally to all developers.
- Regulators and app developers are watching because the Court’s decision will affect whether platforms can impose fees on external payments, shape alternative payment options including crypto wallets, and guide how lower courts craft remedies in tech cases.