The US Supreme Court has rejected Apple’s emergency request to temporarily block a civil contempt order entered by a lower court against the company, in a long-running case with Epic Games, as Apple tries to stave off changes to its App Store business model.

Apple mostly defeated the Epic case, which began in 2020, but the judge in that case, US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, issued an injunction in 2021 that Apple should allow developers to link to external payment methods.

Apple did so, but imposed 27 percent fees on such purchases, compared to fees of around 30 percent usually applied to purchases completed within its App Store.

Epic argued the new 27 percent fees violated the 2021 injunction, and in 2025 Gonzalez Rogers found Apple in contempt for violating the injunction.

Last December, the Ninth Circuit Court upheld the contempt finding, but said Apple should present arguments in court over what fees it should be allowed to charge for purchases via third-party payment systems.

On 4 May, Apple asked the Supreme Court to suspend these negotiations while it appeals the case to the highest court, but the court declined to do so.

That means Apple will have to return to the District Court to face Epic over App Store fees, while it simultaneously appeals the case to the Supreme Court.

Apple had argued to the Supreme Court that the civil contempt ruling was “erroneous and prejudicial”.

Epic had argued that Apple already “successfully delayed the restoration of competition by more than two years, allowing it to reap billions of dollars in what the Ninth Circuit previously affirmed were supracompetitive fees”.

Regulators in other jurisdictions including the EU and the UK have also taken issue with Apple’s App Store fees.