2011 – 2026
The major antitrust and regulatory actions Apple has faced over App Store distribution and payment rules — Epic v. Apple in California, the US Department of Justice's smartphone-monopoly suit in New Jersey, the EU Digital Markets Act and the parallel €1.8 billion Music Streaming fine, the Netherlands ACM dating-app order, Korea's in-app-payment law, Japan's new Mobile Software Competition Act, and the UK CMA's Strategic Market Status designation.
Sibling page: iOS Versions — release timeline with App Store changes (iOS 14.5 ATT, iOS 17.4 EU DMA compliance) called out inline.
Plaintiff. Epic Games, Inc., maker of Fortnite, Unreal Engine, and the Epic Games Store. Filed August 13, 2020 in the Northern District of California, the same day Apple removed Fortnite from the App Store after Epic shipped a hotfix routing in-app payments around Apple's billing system. Epic's "1984"-parody video and the federal complaint were both pre-staged and went live within hours of the takedown.
Theory of liability. Sherman Act §§ 1 and 2 monopolization claims against Apple's control over iOS app distribution and in-app payments, plus a parallel claim under California's Unfair Competition Law (UCL). Epic asked the court to declare both the App Store distribution monopoly and the In-App Purchase requirement unlawful.
2021 trial ruling. Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers ruled on September 10, 2021 — largely for Apple on the federal antitrust counts (rejecting Epic's market-definition theory) but for Epic on the UCL count, finding Apple's "anti-steering" rules — which barred developers from telling users about cheaper out-of-app payment options — violated California law. The court issued a permanent injunction against the anti-steering rules nationwide.
9th Circuit and Supreme Court (first round). The Ninth Circuit affirmed in April 2023. Both sides petitioned the Supreme Court; on January 16, 2024 the Court denied certiorari, leaving the 2021 ruling final.
2024 contempt finding. Apple's compliance design — charging a 27% commission on web-link purchases, gating links behind warning screens, and constraining link presentation — was challenged by Epic. On April 30, 2025, Judge Gonzalez Rogers issued a sweeping contempt order, finding Apple in willful contempt of the 2021 injunction. The order described Apple's compliance scheme as an "obvious cover-up" and referred Apple's vice president of finance for criminal contempt review.
9th Circuit (second round). On December 11, 2025, the Ninth Circuit affirmed the contempt finding in full but narrowed the remedial scope, holding that Apple may charge a commission "based on the costs that are genuinely and reasonably necessary for its coordination of external links for linked-out purchases, but no more," and remanded the question of what that commission can actually be to Judge Gonzalez Rogers.
Supreme Court (second round, pending). Apple is petitioning the Supreme Court for the second time, this time on the contempt remedy and the scope of the anti-steering injunction. In April 2026, Apple sought a stay of the Ninth Circuit's mandate while the cert petition was prepared; the Ninth Circuit reversed the stay on April 28, 2026, sending the fee-design question back to Judge Gonzalez Rogers and leaving the no-commission status quo in place pending any SCOTUS action. A cert decision is expected in fall 2026; if granted, oral argument would land in early 2027.
What to watch next. Judge Gonzalez Rogers's ruling on what costs Apple can recoup on external-link purchases — the practical question Apple's payment economics turn on. Whether the Supreme Court grants cert. Whether the criminal-contempt referral produces any charged conduct.
Plaintiffs. The United States, plus the attorneys general of New Jersey, Arizona, California, Connecticut, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New York, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Tennessee, Vermont, Wisconsin, and the District of Columbia. Filed March 21, 2024 in the District of New Jersey. Indiana, Massachusetts, Nevada, and Washington were added in later amended-complaint waves.
Theory of liability. Sherman Act § 2 monopolization. The complaint alleges Apple maintains its smartphone monopoly through a pattern of conduct that suppresses cross-platform alternatives across five named categories: super-apps (apps that subsume many functions, the way WeChat does in China), cloud-streaming game apps (Xbox Cloud Gaming, GeForce Now), cross-platform messaging (the iMessage / SMS divide and the “green-bubble” user-experience differential with Android), smartwatches (the inability of non-Apple smartwatches to integrate fully with iPhone), and digital wallets (Apple Pay's NFC monopoly). Plus broader claims about developer-tool access, default-app rules, and APIs Apple withholds from third parties.
Procedural posture. Apple filed a motion to dismiss in August 2024 attacking the market definition (arguing that the relevant markets are global smartphones, not US "performance smartphones") and the conduct theory (arguing Apple's product-design choices are not anticompetitive conduct). On June 30, 2025, Judge Julien Xavier Neals denied the motion, holding that the DOJ had sufficiently pleaded both monopoly power in US "smartphones" and "high-end performance smartphones" markets, and that the alleged conduct stated a claim. The denial moves the case into discovery; trial is unlikely before 2028.
Why it matters. Where Epic v. Apple attacked the App Store rules in isolation, the DOJ case attacks Apple's iPhone-platform conduct comprehensively. A win for the government on the merits would reshape iOS at a structural level — opening the door to mandatory super-app distribution, forced NFC access for non-Apple-Pay wallets at the system level, and equal API access for non-Apple smartwatches and messaging clients. A loss would set a high bar for future government antitrust action against any platform's product-design choices.
What to watch next. Discovery scope (the plaintiffs are expected to seek deep access to Apple's internal API-access decisions and product-roadmap deliberations). Summary-judgment briefing once discovery closes. The DOJ-side expert reports on market definition. Any change in administration enforcement priorities, given the case's posture spans multiple US presidential terms.
Complainant. Spotify Technology S.A. filed the underlying competition complaint with the European Commission in March 2019. The Commission opened a formal Article 102 (abuse of dominant position) investigation in June 2020, narrowed it to focus on Apple's anti-steering rules in February 2023, and issued the final decision on March 4, 2024.
Theory of liability. Article 102 abuse of a dominant position in the market for the distribution of music-streaming apps to iPhone and iPad users via the App Store. The conduct: Apple's contractual restrictions ("anti-steering provisions") that prevented music-streaming developers from informing iOS users about cheaper subscription options available outside the App Store. The Commission found the rules were neither necessary nor proportionate and produced consumer harm by raising end-user prices.
Fine. €1.8 billion, including a "deterrence multiplier" applied because Apple's revenue from the affected market alone could not produce a fine large enough to deter repeated abuse. At the time, the largest competition fine in the music-streaming industry's history.
Apple's appeal. Filed at the EU General Court in Luxembourg in May 2024 (case T-422/24). Apple argues the decision lacks credible evidence of consumer harm, ignores the competitive nature of the digital-music market (where Spotify is the dominant player by subscriber count), and improperly applied the deterrence multiplier. A General Court ruling typically takes several years; an appeal from there to the Court of Justice of the European Union (the EU's top court) can extend the case by several more.
Relationship to the DMA. This case predates the Digital Markets Act and was brought under the older Article 102 regime. The DMA's Article 5(4) anti-steering obligation (see EU DMA below) covers the same conduct prospectively, which is why the April 2025 DMA non-compliance decision against Apple on steering reads as a successor enforcement action against the same conduct under a different legal regime.
What to watch next. The General Court's judgment on whether the fine, the conduct theory, and the deterrence multiplier hold up. Whether Apple appeals further to the CJEU. Whether the Spotify-driven complaint produces follow-on private damage actions in EU member states.
Designation. On September 6, 2023 the European Commission formally designated Apple as a "gatekeeper" under the Digital Markets Act for iOS, the App Store, and Safari. The designation triggered a six-month compliance window during which Apple had to bring those services into line with the DMA's prohibitions and obligations — ban on anti-steering, mandatory third-party app marketplace allowance, mandatory access to interoperable system-level features for non-Apple wearables and accessories, choice screens for browsers and search engines, and the ban on pre-installed default-app preferences.
Compliance attempt — iOS 17.4 (March 2024). The most significant structural change to iOS app distribution since the App Store launched in 2008: third-party app marketplaces in the EU, alternative browser engines other than WebKit (the first ever non-WebKit allowance on iOS), NFC contactless-payment access for non-Apple-Pay wallets, a Core Technology Fee on apps distributed outside the App Store, and a browser-choice screen on first launch. Critics — including Spotify, Epic, and the Open Web Advocacy — argued the design preserved Apple's economic position via the Core Technology Fee while complying with the letter of the DMA. (Cross-link: see iOS 17.4 on the versions page for the OS-level changes.)
March 2025 interoperability decisions. The Commission issued two specification decisions clarifying Apple's interoperability obligations — nine specific measures covering iPhone-to-third-party-accessory connectivity (notifications, AirDrop / AirPlay analogues, Wi-Fi credential sharing). Apple sought waivers on five; the Commission refused them all. Apple has been broadly resistant in implementation, drawing follow-on developer complaints in late 2025 that compliance remains incomplete six months after the deadline.
April 2025 non-compliance decision — €500 million fine. On April 22 – 23, 2025, the Commission issued the first formal non-compliance decision under the DMA, finding that Apple's anti-steering rules continued to violate Article 5(4) despite the iOS 17.4 changes. Apple's design still imposed technical and contractual limits on developers' ability to inform users about offers outside the App Store and to steer users to those offers. Apple was given 60 days to comply; full structural-compliance deadlines were left fixed at the original DMA-designation milestones in 2026.
Apple's appeal. Filed at the EU General Court on July 7, 2025. Apple's filing argues the Commission's decision and fine "go far beyond what the law requires" and that the mandated changes are "confusing and potentially harmful to both developers and users." A General Court ruling is expected to take multiple years.
What to watch next. Compliance with the 2026 full-structural deadlines (the rest of the interoperability roadmap and the App Store fee architecture). Any follow-on non-compliance procedures that the Commission opens on browser engines, default-app presentation, or App Store submission rules. The General Court's appellate ruling on the steering fine. Whether Meta's parallel DMA appeal (the Commission imposed a €200 million fine on Meta on the same date for related "pay-or-consent" violations) produces useful precedent.
Plaintiffs. Donald R. Cameron, Pure Sweat Basketball, Inc., and a putative class of US iOS developers who earned proceeds from the US App Store between 2008 and the settlement period. Filed June 4, 2019 in the Northern District of California, before the same Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers who later presided over Epic v. Apple.
Theory of liability. Sherman Act §§ 1 and 2, plus California state-law claims, on the same App-Store-distribution-monopoly theory Epic would later litigate. Distinct from Pepper (consumer side) and Epic (single large developer) by being a developer class action.
Settlement. Announced August 26, 2021 on the eve of the Epic trial ruling, approved June 10, 2022. The deal had three components:
Distribution status. The settlement administrator issued claim checks beginning June 13, 2025 (the second-round distribution; claims have been administered in waves since 2022). On October 6, 2025 the court authorized a further round of distributions before any unclaimed funds are forwarded to a cy pres recipient. Settlement-fund administration is winding down.
Why it matters. Cameron is the case that secured the policy changes — especially the "communicate offers via email outside the app" allowance — that bridge the older anti-steering rule and the post-Epic-injunction compliance regime. The settlement also locked the 15% Small Business rate in as a multi-year commitment rather than a unilateral Apple program that could be withdrawn.
Plaintiffs. Robert Pepper and a putative class of US iPhone users who paid for apps or in-app purchases through the App Store. Filed December 2011 as a consumer-side antitrust class action targeting the App Store's 30% commission as an inflated price passed through to consumers.
Supreme Court ruling (2019). Apple argued plaintiffs lacked antitrust standing under Illinois Brick (the rule that only direct purchasers can sue an antitrust monopolist). The Supreme Court ruled 5–4 in Apple Inc. v. Pepper, 587 U.S. 273 (2019), that App Store consumers are direct purchasers of Apple, because Apple sells apps to consumers (with developers as suppliers), not the other way around. The case returned to the district court for class-certification proceedings.
Class certification (2024) and decertification (2025). In February 2024 Judge Gonzalez Rogers certified a class of US iPhone purchasers who spent more than $10 on apps or in-app purchases — roughly 100 million consumers. After Apple's expert identified methodological problems with the plaintiffs' damages model (including the same individual being counted twice as "Robert Pepper" and "Rob Pepper" with identical address and payment information across the class-size construction), Judge Gonzalez Rogers reversed course and decertified the class on October 27, 2025. The court found the plaintiffs' economic model failed to demonstrate "classwide injury and damages in one stroke" and could not adequately exclude consumers who were not harmed.
Procedural posture. The decertification effectively ends the case as a class action; individual plaintiffs may proceed but the practical economics of doing so are poor. Plaintiffs' counsel may seek interlocutory appeal of the decertification ruling. Even if the class is restored, the named plaintiffs face a much higher evidentiary burden after the Apple-expert findings.
Why it matters. Despite the procedural collapse, Pepper v. Apple remains the load-bearing standing case for consumer antitrust suits against digital marketplaces — the Supreme Court's 2019 holding that App Store buyers are direct Apple purchasers extends to every other digital marketplace in the same posture (Google Play, Steam, the Microsoft Store). The decertification narrows what remedies that doctrine actually delivers, but the standing rule survives.
Regulator. Autoriteit Consument & Markt (ACM) — the Netherlands' competition authority. The order followed a complaint by Match Group, the operator of Tinder, OkCupid, Hinge, and other dating apps; Match argued Apple's mandatory in-app-purchase requirement and 30% commission imposed unfair conditions on dating apps specifically because their primary monetization is in-app subscription, where the App Store fee directly compresses the developer margin.
Order. Issued August 24, 2021 (made public December 24, 2021). ACM held that Apple held a dominant position in the market for the distribution of dating apps via App Store on iOS, and abused it by imposing unreasonable conditions — specifically by requiring dating-app developers to use Apple's IAP system exclusively and by prohibiting steering to alternative payment options. The order required Apple to allow Dutch dating-app developers to use third-party payment systems and/or link out to web-based payment.
Penalty payments. Apple's initial compliance proposals in early 2022 were rejected by ACM as inadequate and continued to use anti-steering language and fee structures effectively replicating the prohibited conduct. ACM imposed periodic penalty payments of €5 million per week until compliance was achieved. Apple ultimately accumulated €50 million in forfeit penalties — ten weeks of non-compliance — before its June 2022 proposal was finally accepted by ACM.
Compliance and current state. Dating-app developers in the Netherlands can choose between (1) continuing to use Apple's IAP, (2) using a third-party payment system within the app, (3) including an in-app link to the developer's web-based payment, or (4) combining options 2 and 3. Apple charges a reduced commission (currently 27%) on transactions processed outside IAP, an arrangement structurally similar to the post-Epic US web-link compliance scheme.
Court appeal. Apple appealed ACM's order to the Rotterdam District Court. In September 2025 the court largely upheld both the abuse-of-dominance finding and the €50 million penalty fine for non-compliance, with only minor adjustments to the order's scope. Further appeal to the Dutch College van Beroep voor het bedrijfsleven (Trade and Industry Appeals Tribunal) is possible.
Why it matters. ACM was the first national regulator anywhere to force Apple to permit alternative payment systems within an iOS app category. Every subsequent regulatory victory — the Korean in-app-payment law, the EU DMA, Japan's MSCA — built on the precedent that Apple's 30%-IAP rule could be unbundled at the regulator level.
Statute. Amendments to South Korea's Telecommunications Business Act enacted August 31, 2021 (Act No. 18475). Often called "the Anti-Google law" in Korean coverage at the time of passage. The first national legislation anywhere in the world to ban app-store operators from requiring developers to use the operator's own in-app billing system, and to prohibit retaliating against developers who chose alternatives.
Enforcement authority. The Korea Communications Commission (KCC). The KCC's enforcement guidelines for the law were finalized in March 2022 and have been progressively tightened.
2023 fine threats. In October 2023 the KCC announced its preliminary determination that both Apple and Google had violated the law, proposing fines of approximately 47.5 billion won (~$35 million) on Apple and 47.5 billion won on Google for in-app-billing-policy practices that constituted prohibited "compulsion." Apple's response argued that its alternative-billing program (a 26% commission on third-party-payment transactions) complied with the Korean rules.
2024 enforcement amendments. An amended Telecommunications Business Act took effect on September 14, 2024, doubling the maximum administrative penalty for forced in-app-payment practices from 3% to 6% of relevant revenue, and clarifying violation criteria around developer choice of payment system, harm to consumer benefit, and impedance to fair competition.
What to watch next. Whether the KCC's preliminary fine determinations against Apple and Google ripen into final orders. Whether the 2024 doubling of the fine ceiling is applied to follow-on enforcement against the same conduct. Whether Apple's Korean alternative-billing fee structure is sufficient under the amended law's stricter "developer choice" criteria.
Statute. The Mobile Software Competition Act (Act on Promotion of Competition for Specified Software Used in Smartphones, Act No. 58 of 2024). Often referred to in English coverage as Japan's "Smartphone Act." Enacted June 12, 2024; entered fully into force December 18, 2025. Drawn explicitly on the model of the EU DMA, with broadly similar gatekeeper-style ex-ante obligations narrowed to mobile operating systems, mobile app stores, and mobile browsers/browser engines.
Enforcement authority. The Japan Fair Trade Commission (JFTC) is the designated enforcement authority. The JFTC has the power to investigate non-compliance and impose administrative surcharges, with surcharge multipliers for repeated violations modeled on the EU DMA's 10% / 20%-of-global-revenue scheme.
Key obligations on Apple. Allow third-party app marketplaces in Japan; permit alternative in-app payment systems with limits on the commission Apple may charge; permit alternative browser engines (the same WebKit-monopoly carveout as the DMA); show choice screens for default browser and search engine; honor interoperability requests from third-party device makers.
Apple's compliance announcement. On December 17 – 18, 2025 Apple announced sweeping changes to iOS in Japan as part of iOS 26.2:
What to watch next. Whether JFTC opens any non-compliance procedures — the equivalent of the EU's April 2025 anti-steering action — against Apple's Japanese fee structure. Whether the Japanese alternative-marketplace ecosystem develops faster than the EU's (where uptake of third-party stores has been modest). Whether Japan and the EU coordinate enforcement in any case where the same conduct is challenged in both jurisdictions.
Statute. The Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 (DMCC Act), which gave the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) ex-ante regulatory authority over digital platforms with "Strategic Market Status" (SMS) — the UK's analogue to the EU DMA gatekeeper regime, structurally similar but with case-by-case "conduct requirements" rather than a fixed obligation list.
Designation. On October 22, 2025 the CMA confirmed Apple's SMS designation covering its mobile operating system, native app distribution, and mobile browser and browser engine. The designation lasts five years (renewable). Google was designated on the same date.
App-store-and-interoperability commitments (April 2026). Rather than impose conduct requirements over Apple's objection, the CMA accepted voluntary commitments after a public consultation. Final commitments were published April 1, 2026 and cover App Store review processes, App Store ranking transparency, restrictions on developer-data use, and a developer-facing channel to request interoperable access to iOS features and APIs — substantially similar to the EU DMA's interoperability regime but routed through the CMA's transparency-and-oversight framework.
Browser-engine work (next round). The Safari / WebKit monopoly — Apple's rule that all iOS browsers must use the WebKit rendering engine, giving Safari roughly an 80–90% effective share of the iOS browser-engine market — is the headline next item on the CMA's mobile-platform programme. The CMA has signaled it expects to progress conduct work on browser-engine choice in 2026 – 2027.
Why it matters. The UK regime is structurally distinct from the EU DMA — conduct requirements are case-by-case, the CMA has discretion that the European Commission lacks, and the UK does not have an equivalent of the EU's blanket Article 5(4) anti-steering rule. As a result the UK is becoming a follow-on jurisdiction where conduct cleared in the EU but contested in execution gets a second pass under a different procedural framework. The April 2026 commitments are the first concrete UK-level set of App Store rules.
The same App Store conduct is being litigated and regulated under multiple legal regimes simultaneously. The case rows above are sorted by significance; this section flips the view to "everything in country X."
Two federal antitrust cases (Epic v. Apple and US v. Apple), two class actions (Cameron, settled; Pepper, decertified). The Sherman Act monopoly theory has won partially in Epic (UCL anti-steering injunction, no Sherman Act recovery), is pending in the DOJ case, and was the load-bearing theory in the developer and consumer class actions.
One Article 102 abuse-of-dominance fine on appeal (Music Streaming, €1.8 billion). Plus the DMA gatekeeper regime with a 2023 designation, the iOS 17.4 compliance round, March 2025 interoperability decisions, and the April 2025 €500 million non-compliance fine for steering — itself on appeal at the General Court.
The ACM dating-app order (2021) was the first national-regulator victory anywhere on alternative payments. Apple paid €50 million in periodic penalties before complying. The Rotterdam District Court upheld the order in September 2025.
The Telecommunications Business Act amendments (2021) made Korea the first country to ban forced in-app billing. KCC enforcement is ongoing; the September 2024 amendment doubled the maximum fine to 6% of relevant revenue.
The Mobile Software Competition Act (MSCA) entered into full force December 18, 2025. Apple's compliance changes shipped in iOS 26.2 with alternative app marketplaces, third-party payment options, and browser/search choice screens. The JFTC is the enforcement authority.
The CMA Strategic Market Status regime under the DMCC Act 2024 designated Apple in October 2025. Final voluntary commitments on App Store and interoperability were published April 1, 2026; browser-engine work is the next round.
Epic's August 2020 hotfix was deliberate and pre-staged: Tim Sweeney was on record well before the lawsuit landed that he intended to use Fortnite's 350-million-account install base as the lever to break the App Store distribution monopoly. The complaint, the "1984"-parody video, and the press strategy were ready before Apple removed the app. Apple's response — a same-day takedown under the developer agreement — was equally prepared.
The 2021 trial ruling was a partial loss for both sides. Judge Gonzalez Rogers rejected Epic's federal antitrust market definition (concluding the relevant market was "digital mobile gaming transactions," in which Apple did not have monopoly power), and rejected Epic's argument that Apple was required to allow alternative app stores or alternative payment systems on iOS. But she also found Apple's anti-steering rule — barring developers from telling users about cheaper out-of-app payment options — an unfair business practice under California's UCL and issued a permanent nationwide injunction against it.
Apple's compliance design after the Supreme Court's January 2024 cert denial was the focal point of every subsequent development. By introducing a 27% commission on web-link purchases (versus the 30% IAP commission, with an additional 3% gap covering the supposed "credit card processing" Apple was no longer doing), gating links behind warning interstitials, and constraining link presentation, Apple structured a regime in which the economics for developers were essentially unchanged. Epic returned to court arguing this was contempt; in April 2025 Judge Gonzalez Rogers agreed with extraordinary force. Her opinion called the compliance scheme an "obvious cover-up," referred a senior Apple finance executive for criminal-contempt review, and ordered Apple to immediately permit unfettered web-link payment without commission.
The Ninth Circuit's December 11, 2025 affirmance of the contempt finding — while narrowing the remedial scope to allow Apple to charge a cost-recovery commission — sent the question back to Judge Gonzalez Rogers on what those costs actually are. Apple's April 2026 SCOTUS petition is the second time the case has reached the Supreme Court. A cert decision is expected in the fall 2026 term.
The Digital Markets Act, which entered into force in November 2022 and became operationally applicable in May 2023, was a structural break with the prior EU competition-law approach to platform conduct. Article 102's abuse-of-dominance regime is ex post — the Commission has to prove dominance, abuse, and consumer harm in each case. The DMA is ex ante: once a firm is designated a "gatekeeper" for a "core platform service," a fixed list of obligations applies, and the Commission can fine non-compliance directly.
Apple's September 2023 designation covered iOS, the App Store, and Safari. The compliance window closed in March 2024 with iOS 17.4 — the most significant structural change to iOS since the App Store launched, but scoped strictly to the EU. Critics argued from the start that Apple's compliance design preserved its economic position via a Core Technology Fee (€0.50 per first install per year above one million installs) that captured value from developers who left the App Store, while complying with the letter of the DMA's free-third-party-marketplace rule.
The April 2025 €500 million fine was the first formal non-compliance decision under the DMA against any gatekeeper, paired with a €200 million fine on Meta on the same date. Apple's appeal to the General Court — filed July 7, 2025 — argues the decision goes beyond what the DMA requires, but the more interesting question for the regime is whether the Commission's interpretation of Article 5(4) (the steering obligation) survives appellate review. If the General Court affirms in full, the DMA's bite as Apple's most binding constraint outside the United States is locked in. If the Court trims the steering rule's scope, the regulatory delta between the EU and other jurisdictions narrows.
The March 2025 interoperability decisions are the parallel front. They forced Apple to publish a roadmap for granting non-Apple wearables and accessories the same iOS-system access (notifications, pairing, automatic Wi-Fi credential sharing) that Apple Watch and AirPods enjoy. Implementation has been incremental and contested; developer complaints in late 2025 alleged Apple was dragging its feet six months past the deadline. Whether the Commission opens a follow-on non-compliance procedure on interoperability is the load-bearing watch-item for 2026.
The March 2024 complaint reads as a comprehensive theory of Apple's iPhone-platform conduct rather than as an App Store case in isolation. The five named conduct categories — super-apps, cloud-streaming game apps, cross-platform messaging, smartwatches, and digital wallets — share a single pattern: Apple withholds API access, default-app integration, or system-level functionality from third-party offerings that would substitute for an Apple offering, in a way that (the DOJ alleges) is not justified by any technical or product-design rationale and serves only to make iPhone customers stickier.
The case's market definition is its weakest theoretical link and Apple's strongest argument. The DOJ defines the relevant market as US "performance smartphones" — the iPhone, plus high-end Android phones — arguing that's the market in which the iPhone has monopoly power. Apple has argued (and will argue at trial) that the relevant market is global smartphones, in which Apple's share is roughly half (by unit, lower; by revenue, higher). The June 2025 motion-to-dismiss ruling found the DOJ had pleaded both definitions sufficiently to survive dismissal, but the question reopens at summary judgment with a developed factual record.
The conduct theory has its own structural challenge. Antitrust law generally treats unilateral product-design choices as protected, on the rationale that compelling a defendant to redesign its products in service of competitors is a remedy courts struggle to administer. The DOJ has to thread the needle of arguing that Apple's restrictions are not legitimate product-design choices but exclusionary conduct, distinguishable from the kind of "refusal to deal" the Supreme Court protected in Trinko (2004) and Aspen Skiing (1985). Whether the District of New Jersey accepts that distinction is the case's other load-bearing question.
Trial is unlikely before 2028. Discovery began in summer 2025 and is expected to run through 2026 – 2027, with summary-judgment briefing in late 2027. Whichever administration is in office at the time of trial will own the verdict.
The same conduct — Apple's App Store anti-steering rules and 30% IAP commission — is being challenged simultaneously under United States antitrust law, California's UCL, EU Article 102 abuse-of-dominance, the EU DMA's Article 5(4), the Netherlands ACM's national competition act, Korea's Telecommunications Business Act, Japan's MSCA, and the UK CMA's Strategic Market Status regime. Each forum has reached a different result on the same facts, in part because the legal tests differ and in part because the remedies they can impose differ.
The structural pattern: every regulator that has reached the merits has found the anti-steering rules problematic and required changes — from the ACM in 2021 through the EU Commission's 2024 Music Streaming fine and 2025 DMA decision, the Korean KCC enforcement, and Judge Gonzalez Rogers in the United States. Apple has responded in each case with a compliance design that preserves the economics through a reduced-but-still-material commission on alternative-payment transactions: 27% in Epic, 27% in the Netherlands, 26% in Korea, the Core Technology Fee plus reduced App Store commission in the EU, the 21% / 5%-additional-IAP structure in Japan. The repetition is not coincidence — it is Apple's playbook for compliance with rulings whose substantive requirements vary while their economic intent is the same.
The pattern also creates the next legal frontier. Plaintiffs and regulators across jurisdictions have started arguing that the reduced-commission compliance designs themselves violate the rulings they purport to satisfy — the Epic contempt finding, the EU's April 2025 DMA non-compliance decision, ACM's €50 million periodic-penalty assessment, and the developer complaints to the Commission in late 2025 are all instances of the same recurrent dispute. Whether Apple's "headline-compliance, economics-preserved" approach holds up is the meta-question that ties every active case on this page together.
Patent disputes between Apple and other companies (e.g. Apple v. Samsung, the various Qualcomm and Ericsson cases) are not App Store cases and do not appear here. They are part of Apple's general litigation history, not the App Store regulatory record.
Apple Pay-specific antitrust matters (the EU NFC case that resolved in 2024 with an Apple commitment to open NFC access for non-Apple-Pay wallets) overlap with the DMA story but warrant their own treatment if the docket grows. They are mentioned in the EU DMA row's interoperability paragraph but do not have a dedicated row.
App Tracking Transparency-related litigation — the privacy-and-ATT regulatory questions out of the FTC, the Bundeskartellamt, and the various ad-industry follow-on actions — are a related but distinct topic. Backlog work on a separate /data/ios/privacy-and-att/ page is contemplated.
The links below point to the authoritative places to read the dockets and rulings directly — news coverage is downstream of these primary sources.
All four are in California or New Jersey federal courts; CourtListener mirrors most filings.
# Free Law Project (CourtListener) docket mirror
https://www.courtlistener.com/ # search: "Epic Games Apple"
https://www.courtlistener.com/ # search: "United States Apple" (D.N.J. 2024)
https://www.courtlistener.com/ # search: "Cameron Apple"
https://www.courtlistener.com/ # search: "In re Apple iPhone Antitrust"
# PACER — authoritative federal docket access (fee-based)
https://pacer.uscourts.gov/
# 9th Circuit opinion on Epic v. Apple contempt (Dec 11, 2025)
https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2025/12/11/25-2935.pdfBoth the DMA proceedings and the AT.40437 Music Streaming case are managed by DG Competition.
# DMA case page (designations + non-compliance decisions)
https://digital-markets-act.ec.europa.eu/
# Music Streaming — case AT.40437
https://competition-cases.ec.europa.eu/cases/AT.40437
# EU General Court (appeals)
https://curia.europa.eu/
# Apple's developer-facing DMA documentation
https://developer.apple.com/support/dma-and-apps-in-the-eu/ACM publishes English-language announcements; Rotterdam District Court rulings appear on rechtspraak.nl.
# ACM English news feed
https://www.acm.nl/en
# Rotterdam District Court (judgments)
https://www.rechtspraak.nl/
# Apple developer guidance for NL dating apps
https://developer.apple.com/support/storekit-external-entitlement/The Korea Communications Commission publishes enforcement announcements in Korean and English.
# KCC (English)
https://www.kcc.go.kr/user.do?page=E02010000
# Library of Congress legal monitor on the 2021 amendments
https://www.loc.gov/item/global-legal-monitor/The Japan Fair Trade Commission is the MSCA enforcement authority; Apple's December 2025 announcement is the canonical compliance notice.
# JFTC (English)
https://www.jftc.go.jp/en/
# Apple Newsroom — iOS in Japan compliance announcement
https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2025/12/apple-announces-changes-to-ios-in-japan/The UK CMA publishes designation decisions, conduct requirements, and accepted commitments on gov.uk.
# CMA mobile-platform programme
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/the-cmas-programme-of-work-across-mobile-platforms
# Apple SMS designation page
https://www.gov.uk/cma-cases/apples-mobile-platformSources: Epic Games, Inc. v. Apple Inc. N.D. Cal. and 9th Cir. dockets; United States v. Apple Inc. D.N.J. docket; Cameron v. Apple Inc. N.D. Cal. docket; In re Apple iPhone Antitrust Litigation (Pepper) N.D. Cal. docket and Supreme Court 587 U.S. 273 (2019); European Commission case AT.40437 (Music Streaming) and the DMA designation, March 2025 interoperability, and April 2025 non-compliance decisions; Netherlands ACM dating-app order and Rotterdam District Court ruling; South Korean Telecommunications Business Act amendments (Act No. 18475 of 2021); Japan Mobile Software Competition Act (Act No. 58 of 2024) and the JFTC enforcement guidelines; UK CMA Strategic Market Status designation under the DMCC Act 2024; CourtListener (Free Law Project) docket mirrors; Apple Newsroom announcements at apple.com/newsroom and the Apple Developer DMA / MSCA / dating-app pages; contemporaneous reporting in Reuters, Bloomberg, NYT, WSJ, The Information, FT, and 9to5Mac. Court records and EU Commission decisions are public; reporter coverage is cited under fair use (linked, not republished). Last updated April 2026.
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