Judge denies Apple's request for a stay after Epic trial

Apple vs Epic trial
(Image credit: ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images)

Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers has denied Apple's request for a stay of the injunction ordering it to let app developers link to non-Apple payment options. The company has 90 days from the verdict to comply.

As part of the Epic v Apple case that went to court this year, Apple was found to be in violation of California's Unfair Competition Law. A permanent injunction declared that, "Apple Inc. [...] are hereby permanently restrained and enjoined from prohibiting developers from (i) including in their apps and their metadata buttons, external links, or other calls to action that direct customers to purchasing mechanisms, in addition to In-App Purchasing and (ii) communicating with customers through points of contact obtained voluntarily from customers through account registration within the app."

"It's going to take months to figure out the engineering, economic, business, and other issues," said Apple's attorney Mark Perry when requesting a stay on the order. "It is exceedingly complicated. There have to be guardrails and guidelines to protect children, to protect developers, to protect consumers, to protect Apple. And they have to be written into guidelines that can be explained and enforced and applied."

Epic's attorney Gary Bornstein suggested this was purely a delaying tactic. "Apple does nothing unless it is forced to do it," he said.

It seems Judge Rogers agreed. "You haven't asked for additional time. You've asked for an injunction which would effectively take years," she said. "You asked for an across-the-board stay which could take three, four, five years." 

Since the ruling was first issued in September, Apple has until December 9 to comply. Here's a full recap of the trial.

Thanks, The Verge.

Jody Macgregor
Weekend/AU Editor

Jody's first computer was a Commodore 64, so he remembers having to use a code wheel to play Pool of Radiance. A former music journalist who interviewed everyone from Giorgio Moroder to Trent Reznor, Jody also co-hosted Australia's first radio show about videogames, Zed Games. He's written for Rock Paper Shotgun, The Big Issue, GamesRadar, Zam, Glixel, Five Out of Ten Magazine, and Playboy.com, whose cheques with the bunny logo made for fun conversations at the bank. Jody's first article for PC Gamer was about the audio of Alien Isolation, published in 2015, and since then he's written about why Silent Hill belongs on PC, why Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale is the best fantasy shopkeeper tycoon game, and how weird Lost Ark can get. Jody edited PC Gamer Indie from 2017 to 2018, and he eventually lived up to his promise to play every Warhammer videogame.