How did Apple create legal chaos when the judge’s ruling
After several weeks, the Federal Court of Appeal said that Apple must reduce its grip in the application store, Tim Cook, CEO of the company, and the senior Lieutenant discussed what to do.
For more than a decade, Apple requested applications to use the application store and collect a commission of up to 30 percent on applications sales. Now, in 2023, the courts were requesting them to allow applications to avoid Apple payments and go directly to consumers online. Mr. Cook wanted to know: Can Apple receive fees for these sales without violating the court order?
Phil Schiller, who supervised the application store, worried that the new drawings may be illegal. The merit of making online sales is free from the Apple Committee. Luka Maestri, who supervised the company’s money. He preferred to impose fees on 27 percent for online sales because it will protect the company’s business.
Mr. Cook stood up with Mr. Maestri, and Apple set out to justify this choice. A federal judge said in an angry ruling last week that he was “making” an independent economic study to legitimize its decision. Thousands of documents have been withheld by law franchise. At least one of the executives was lied to the witness platform.
The judge’s ruling, as well as the testimony of witnesses this year and the company’s documents issued on Thursday, shows the extraordinary measures taken by Apple to keep each shark collected in the application store. Judge iPhone Gonzalez Rogers, who listened to the initial lawsuit filed by the Epic Games in 2020, could cast a shadow on Apple’s work for years, weakening its credibility while intensifying legal audits in its operations.
The company is also trying to formulate half a scale of other legal challenges, including a lawsuit against the Ministry of Justice, which accuses it of maintaining the iPhone monopoly, Collective lawsuit lawsuits Application developers in the United States and anti -competing investigations to the Application store by the European Union, Britainand Spain Perhaps China.
Mark said. Limley, a professor of anti -monopoly and technology law: “If your credibility with the courts is burned, then the next judge will be less ready for tolerance.” “It will be easier for the judge to jump to the conclusion that people are lying,” he said in Apple’s future cases.
Google has shown that the company’s procedures can put a shadow on high -risk legal procedures. Last month, in the anti -monopoly case on advertising technology, one of the two judges said that the company’s efforts to hide its contacts raised questions about whether it would follow the means of recession in the court for its behavior.
Apple is the rule of Judge Gonzalez Rogers, who held the company for civil contempt. In a request to delay the court order to reduce its grip at the App Store, Apple said on Wednesday that it would show that the discovery of disdain was “unjustified”. The company refused to comment on this article.
EPIC, the Fortnite developer, sued Apple in 2020, accused of violating anti -monopoly laws by forcing developers to use its application store payment system. Judge Gonzalez Rogers rule largely in favor of Apple, and found that he was not a monopoly, as EPIC argued. But she said that Apple violated the California competition law and ordered the company to allow applications to include links and buttons to buy programs and services outside the application store.
Apple has created a business group, Project Wissonsin, which carries a symbol, to respond to the request. It was considered two different solutions. The first will allow applications to include online purchasing links at banned sites, free of commission. The second will allow applications to provide those links that he wished, but forces them to pay the commission of 27 percent of sales.
With links and non -commission, Apple estimated that it might lose hundreds of millions of dollars, up to more than a billion dollars. With a 27 percent commission, you will not lose almost anything.
Mr. Cook met the team in June 2023. reviewed a set of commission options, from 20 to 27 percent. He also evaluated the analysis that shows that a few developers will leave the Apple payment system for their own if there is a 27 percent commission, as the court records appear. Ultimately, this rate also chose with approval of a plan to restrict the place where applications are placed online purchases.
After that, Apple rented an economic consultant, an analysis group, to write a report that Apple can use to justify its fees. The report concluded that Apple distribution tools and services were worth more than 30 percent of the application revenue.
Apple has also created screens to discourage online purchases by making it look scary and “dangerous”, and the court documents appear. Mr. Cook has created it, and asked the team a warning to confirm the privacy and security of Apple. Instead of “you will not deal with Apple anymore, the company said:” Apple is not responsible for the privacy or safety of the purchases made on the web. “
When Apple unveiled the 27 percent commission in January 2024, EPIC submitted a court in court that Apple was not compatible with the judge’s order. Judge Gonzalez Rogers and EPIC brought back to court. Alex Roman, Vice President of the Finance, witnessed that Apple made its final decision on its commission on January 16, 2024. Executive officials also witnessed that the analysis group report helped them determine the rate of the committee.
Judge Gonzalez Rogers asked whether Apple was telling the truth and asked the company to submit documents on its plans. She produced 89,000 documents, but she claimed that a third of her was secret. The court said that these allegations were “unpaid” and forced Apple to deliver more than half of the documents.
The documents showed that Mr. Roman had lied under the oath, and that the analysis group report was “malignant” and that Apple had deliberately ignored an order from the court. It was called “Tamarry”.
Several professors and lawyers of the Anti -monopoly and lawyers law said that its decision will give prosecutors, organizers and ammunition judges against Apple’s defense strategies in half of Dzina of similar issues around the world.
These experts said that when the company tries to revise or block documents, public prosecutors and judges can refer to how these strategies are found to be “tactics to delay the procedures” in the case of epic games. When executive officials at Apple, public prosecutors and judges can question their credibility because the company was found “hiding the truth” and “frank lying”.
Colin Cas, a counter -monopoly lawyer in Brucecire, said the courts and organizers who are seeking Apple documents “will start by saying:” Open your doors, and do not dare try these small games that you used in the past. “
The company will face more doubts about the defenses, also in the Ministry of Justice’s lawsuit, said Rebecca Hoy Alinsworth, a professor of law at Vanderbilt University, who is studying the anti -monopoly. In the past, Apple said it shows green bubbles of Android messages because communication through smart phone systems is less secure. But she said that these allegations may be considered less credible after the epic rule.
Ms. Alinsworth said that the judge’s opinion can affect the torque of the European Union, Britain, Spain and other pressure on Apple to change the practices of the application store because the organizers and courts often find safety in the numbers.
“Apple was acting as if it were above the law,” she said. “This sends Apple signal not.”