A judge has ruled that Apple cannot charge a commission on purchase made outside the App Store.

A new report from The Verge shares the details on a ruling in the Epic Games v. Apple legal battle that has been going on between the two companies for way too long now. Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers has ruled that, effectively immediately, Apple can no longer collect fees on purchases made outside of apps. Furthermore, Apple can no longer restrict how developers point users to where they can make purchases outside of apps.

Judge Rogers has also "referred the case to the US attorney to review it for possible criminal contempt proceedings." Judge Rogers states that Apple has "willfully" chosen not to comply with her previous injunction from the original 2021 ruling. She says, "That [Apple] thought this Court would tolerate such insubordination was a gross miscalculation."

As part of today's ruling, Judge Rogers states that Apple cannot:

Following today's ruling, Epic says that they are going to bring Fortnite back to the US App Store "next week." Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney also says, "If Apple extends the court's friction-free, Apple-tax-free framework worldwide, we'll return Fortnite to the App Store worldwide and drop current and future litigation on the topic."

I would be very surprised if Apple just caves to Epic after all of this, but time will tell.