Epic Games’ Ninth Circuit Win Affirming Civil Contempt Finding

On December 11, 2025, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit unanimously affirmed the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California’s finding that Apple Inc. (“Apple”) committed civil contempt based on Apple’s willful violations of a permanent injunction that Cravath client Epic Games, Inc. (“Epic”) previously secured against Apple. The Court of Appeals affirmed several contempt sanctions imposed by the District Court against Apple, while modifying or reversing in part certain other sanctions and remanding to the District Court for further proceedings. The Court also unanimously affirmed the denial of Apple’s request to vacate or modify the permanent injunction based on recent California state court decisions and denied Apple’s request to reassign the case to a different district judge on remand.

After a bench trial in May 2021, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California found that Apple violated California’s Unfair Competition Law and granted Epic a permanent injunction ordering Apple to stop prohibiting App Store developers from including in their apps “buttons, links or other calls to action” that would steer customers to complete their in‑app purchases outside the app, using payment options other than Apple’s. The Ninth Circuit affirmed the permanent injunction. On April 30, 2025, after evidentiary hearings conducted in May 2024 and February 2025, the District Court granted Epic’s motion to enforce the permanent injunction, finding that Apple had engaged in willful violations by continuing to actually or de facto prohibit developers from steering. The District Court granted contempt sanctions against Apple, including an order that Apple remove all limitations it placed on steering and refrain from charging a fee on steered transactions that are completed outside the app. The District Court also sanctioned Apple for discovery abuses and referred Apple and one of its employees for criminal investigation.

In affirming the finding of contempt, the Ninth Circuit concluded that “Apple claimed to comply with the injunction, but it instead prohibited developers from using buttons, links, and other calls to action without paying a prohibitive commission to Apple, and it restricted the design of developers’ links to make it difficult for customers to use them.” The Court upheld the injunction prohibiting Apple from limiting the design or placement of steering links and held that although Apple should be allowed to charge some fees on linked transactions, those should be limited and tied to the costs of any services Apple provides in facilitating steering links.

The Cravath team includes partners Gary A. Bornstein, Yonatan Even, Lauren A. Moskowitz and Michael J. Zaken; senior attorney M. Brent Byars; and associates Charlotte C. Rothschild, Kristina Stankovic, Samantha S. Chen, Sarah Kim, Conor J. Regan, Christina (Tina) Seideman and Brianna Ward.

The case is Epic Games, Inc. v. Apple Inc., No. 25‑2935 (9th Cir.)