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Australia’s Epic v. Apple orders cap the fee on outside payments by Apple’s own yardstick, and Apple says it will appeal

Aaron Harme

Australia’s Federal Court on Thursday, Australian time, ordered Apple to let iPhone users with Australian accounts install apps from rival app stores and developers’ websites, and to let developers take payment outside Apple’s own system, starting at noon Melbourne time on March 1, 2027. The orders published with the judgment in Epic Games’ case also limit what Apple can charge on those outside sales. Apple told Reuters it “will request a stay and appeal the outcome.”

Fortnite is back on the Australian App Store, because the order to readmit Epic’s apps took effect right away. The game had returned to iOS everywhere else in May 2026 while Epic waited on this decision, Engadget reports. The rest of the orders wait for March, and Apple can ask between Feb. 1 and Feb. 15 to push that date to May 3. Apple was also ordered to pay 85% of Epic’s costs through the trial on liability.

The orders put into effect the court’s August 2025 finding that Apple misused its market power. Apple pulled Fortnite in August 2020 after Epic added its own payment system to get around commissions of roughly 30%, according to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, which joined the case this year to make submissions on the remedy.

For apps distributed outside the App Store, Apple can’t charge any fee on purchases made through another payment method or on a developer’s website. For apps inside the App Store that use another checkout or send buyers to the web, Apple’s fee can’t exceed what it charges App Store apps selling physical goods or services through a non-Apple checkout, plus extra costs Apple “genuinely and reasonably” incurs on the digital sale.

Apple also can’t make developers report those outside sales, give it audit rights over them, or offer Apple’s payment option next to their own. Developers can charge less when buyers skip Apple’s checkout.

Europe’s Digital Markets Act opened iOS to other stores with iOS 17.4 in 2024, and Apple kept attaching conditions and fees for developers who used them, Digital Trends notes. Engadget reads the Australian orders as ruling out the “malicious compliance” Apple has been accused of, such as its “Core Technology” fee for third-party stores.

The Australian orders make the yardstick whatever Apple charges for a different kind of sale, so the court never had to say what a fair commission on a game skin or a subscription would be. Any regulator can borrow that, because it only needs Apple’s own price list.

The injunctions cover the Australian App Store and Australian accounts, but developers anywhere in Apple’s Developer Program can use them, and so can payment providers anywhere. They also have no end date, though Apple can ask to change them if circumstances shift.

Epic wanted a wider geographic reach, and the court accepted Apple’s arguments for keeping the orders to the Australian App Store and Australian accounts, one of two reasons it gave for trimming Epic’s costs.

The court said it would talk with the parties about whether any stay is needed if Apple appeals, and on what terms. A stay would push the fee formula past March 1, and every month it holds is a month before regulators in other countries can point to it running on real iPhones.

Sources

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