Apple asks California court to freeze Epic Games case during Supreme Court review

Apple has filed a motion asking the Northern District of California to halt additional steps in its long-running dispute with Epic Games while the Supreme Court examines one key element of the litigation.

Apple moves to stay lower-court remand on contempt finding. The justices decided late last month to examine whether the company could face a civil-contempt finding for allegedly violating a 2021 injunction that ordered it to permit developers to steer users toward outside payment methods. Once that order became active, Apple permitted external links yet imposed a 27 percent commission on any resulting sales.

District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers determined that both the commission and the limits Apple placed on how those links could be displayed breached the injunction, leading her to hold the tech giant in contempt. The company countered that nothing in the original order barred it from collecting a fee on transactions completed away from the App Store. Those conflicting interpretations triggered multiple appeals that have now landed at the nation’s highest court.

Remand proceedings target commission rate on external links. Despite the justices’ decision to take up the matter, the lower court had been scheduled to resume its work, with Judge Gonzalez Rogers weighing what fee, if any, Apple may lawfully collect on purchases initiated through outside links. After learning the Supreme Court would hear its appeal, Apple indicated it would request a pause, contending that the eventual ruling could reshape the legal foundation and reach of any continued proceedings below.

Apple’s motion argues inefficiency and prejudice. In the newly submitted filing, the company maintains that the remand exists solely because the Ninth Circuit upheld the civil-contempt determination. It warns that should the Supreme Court overturn or nullify that affirmance, the district court would lack grounds to conduct an elaborate review of any commission on “linked-out” purchases, or any such review would rest on an invalidated appellate decision. The motion adds that the justices’ eventual opinion might also clarify the scope of the original injunction and future hearings, possibly including guidance on permissible commission rates. A reversal could even send the contempt question back to the Ninth Circuit for a fresh look. In any scenario, Apple insists it would be wasteful and unfair to force the district court into a detailed inquiry based on an appellate ruling now under review that could soon disappear.

Timeline set for responses and potential next steps. Epic now has until July 10 to oppose the stay request, after which Apple must submit its reply by July 13. Should the judge reject the motion, Apple would be required to present its proposed external-link commission schedule within 24 hours of that denial. Approval of the stay, however, would suspend all lower-court activity pending the Supreme Court’s decision on the contempt appeal.

Separately, the Supreme Court declined Apple’s request to limit any rulings in the Epic matter exclusively to that developer instead of applying them across the U.S. App Store.