Apple Fights Back Against New Round of App Store Fee Claims

Apple is asking a federal judge in California to shut down a proposed class action accusing the company of dodging a court order meant to let app developers steer customers toward cheaper, outside payment options, arguing the developers behind the case already gave up this exact fight once before.

The company filed its motion to dismiss on July 2, targeting a lawsuit brought by two small developers: Pure Sweat Basketball, which runs online and in-app basketball training, and NFP Charting Online, a natural family planning app.

Both companies argue Apple has continued defying a 2021 injunction issued in Epic Games' long-running antitrust fight with the tech giant, an order that barred Apple from stopping developers from linking users out to alternative payment pages inside their own apps.

According to the developers, Apple technically allowed those links but attached fees so steep that using them made no financial sense, effectively neutering the workaround while pretending to comply with the court's order. They argue this amounts to Apple defying the injunction and say the company should have to hand over whatever profit it made as a result.

Apple's central defense leans on history: Pure Sweat and NFP were both part of an earlier class settlement, known as the Cameron case, that resolved claims over whether Apple's App Store commissions were unfairly inflated. In its filing, Apple points out that the developers could have raised the steering issue back then and negotiated for the right to redirect customers to outside payment systems, but instead settled for cash payments and permission to communicate with customers through email and other outside channels. Having accepted that deal, Apple argues, the developers cannot now come back and demand the broader right to steer customers from inside the app itself, a benefit Apple says they specifically bargained away.

Beyond the settlement issue, Apple also invokes the legal doctrine of res judicata, arguing that the current suit, the Cameron settlement, and the original Epic Games case all revolve around the same core dispute over Apple's payment rules. Because courts have already treated the three cases as concerning the same underlying conduct, Apple contends the developers are simply repackaging an old argument under a new legal theory, and that the case should be dismissed with prejudice.

The company also challenges whether the developers even have the right to bring this kind of claim in the first place, arguing neither company points to any specific plan to launch outside payment links that Apple's fee structure supposedly blocked. Apple says the developers haven't explained why they, as opposed to Epic Games itself, should be allowed to enforce a separate court injunction on their own behalf.

On the substance of the case, Apple argues that claims based on legal theories like unjust enrichment cannot proceed because the developers' relationship with Apple is governed by a signed developer agreement, an actual contract that both companies acknowledged as binding in prior court filings. Apple also says the developers are effectively asking for every dollar of commission it has ever collected from them, without any effort to separate which portion, if any, might have been improperly charged, something Apple calls an unfair windfall, especially given a recent appellate ruling confirming Apple is still owed some form of compensation for use of its platform.

As a fallback if the judge won't dismiss the case outright, Apple wants proceedings frozen until the U.S. Supreme Court weighs in on a related legal question it has already agreed to hear: whether a company can be held in civil contempt for violating the general spirit of a court order, even when that order never explicitly addressed the conduct in question.

Apple argues the outcome of that Supreme Court case will directly shape whether the developers' claims, which rest on the idea that Apple's contempt in the Epic case entitles them to compensation, can move forward at all.