The Epic Games Supreme Court hearing is set for Monday, January 11, 2027, as per the Court’s docket. The justices will decide only whether Apple can be held in civil contempt for violating the spirit of an injunction, and the commission Apple can charge on outside purchases is not part of this review.
The Court set the case for argument on November 2, as 9to5Mac reported. The lower court rulings stay in effect until the justices decide, since Justice Kagan denied Apple’s request to pause the Ninth Circuit’s mandate on May 6.
The Epic Games Supreme Court hearing is limited to the contempt ruling
Apple asked the Court to review two questions, and on June 30 the justices took only the first. That question asks whether a court can hold a party in civil contempt for violating an injunction’s spirit when the injunction says nothing about the conduct, or whether the order has to clearly and unambiguously bar that conduct.
The justices left out Apple’s second question, which asked whether the Ninth Circuit wrongly carved out an antitrust exception to the Court’s 2025 CASA ruling on injunctions.
The original injunction barred Apple from prohibiting developers from including buttons, external links or other calls to action that point to other purchasing options. Apple then charged a 27% commission on purchases made through those links, and in April 2025 the district court found Apple in contempt and barred it from charging any commission. The Ninth Circuit ruled on December 11, 2025, largely upholding the contempt finding while allowing Apple to charge some commission as long as it is not prohibitive.
The Solicitor General backs Apple on the 27% fee but not the plain buttons
Apple filed its opening brief on September 14. A week later, the Justice Department’s Solicitor General filed an amicus brief supporting neither party and asked the Court to reverse part of the contempt ruling. The Solicitor General says a fair ground of doubt exists over whether the injunction barred the 27% commission, because the order bars Apple from prohibiting buttons and links and never mentions commissions.
On the plain button restriction, the Solicitor General reaches the opposite result. Apple allowed only buttons with no visible shape and a background matching the app page, and the Solicitor General says those are indistinguishable from links, so the injunction’s separate protection for buttons was violated. The government asks the Court to affirm that finding and to send four other design restrictions back to the lower courts.
Nine amicus briefs have been filed since September 16, including the Solicitor General’s and ones from the Chamber of Commerce, the Washington Legal Foundation and former federal antitrust enforcers.
The district court keeps working on Apple’s fee while the justices decide
A separate proceeding in the Northern District of California is deciding what commission Apple may charge on linked-out purchases. Apple asked to pause that case until the Supreme Court rules, and the judge rejected Apple’s bid to pause it. Justice Kagan then denied Apple’s request to stop the proceedings on August 13.
Epic’s response brief is due November 13, and Apple files its reply after that, ahead of the January 11 argument.
