Judge rules Apple executive lied under oath, makes criminal contempt referral

Link to the court doc:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;storage.courtlistener.com&#x2F;recap&#x2F;gov.uscourts.cand.364265&#x2F;gov.uscourts.cand.364265.1508.0_2.pdf" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;storage.courtlistener.com&#x2F;recap&#x2F;gov.uscourts.cand.36...</a><p>&gt; The testimony of Mr. Roman, Vice President of Finance, was replete with misdirection and outright lies. He even went so far as to testify that Apple did not look at comparables to estimate the costs of alternative payment solutions that developers would need to procure to facilitate linked-out purchases. (May 2024 Tr. 266:22–267:11 (Roman).)<p>&gt; Mr. Roman did not stop there, however. He also testified that up until January 16, 2024, Apple had no idea what fee it would impose on linked-out purchases:<p>&gt; Q. And I take it that Apple decided to impose a 27 percent fee on linked purchases prior to January 16, 2024, correct? A. The decision was made that day.<p>&gt; Q. It’s your testimony that up until January 16, 2024, Apple had no idea what -- what fee it’s going to impose on linked purchases? A. That is correct<p>&gt; (May 2024 Tr. 202:12–18 (Roman).) Another lie under oath: contemporaneous business<p>So was Roman incompetent or just kissing ass hoping to become the President of Finance

Related ongoing threads:<p><i>Apple violated antitrust ruling, judge finds</i> - <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=43852145">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=43852145</a> - May 2025 (504 comments)<p><i>A senior Apple exec could be jailed in Epic case</i> - <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=43859814">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=43859814</a> - May 2025 (58 comments)

I really, really, really hope this guy gets treated like very else under similar circumstances. Top execs are totally used to be able to buy their way out of problems with company money without any personal repercussions other than maybe a big severance package.

&gt;Internally, Phillip Schiller had advocated that Apple comply with the Injunction, but Tim Cook ignored Schiller and instead allowed Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri and his finance team to convince him otherwise. Cook chose poorly. The real evidence, detailed herein, more than meets the clear and convincing standard to find a violation.<p>Judging by tech, apple is right now in deep water due to the failure of delivering apple intelligence and a major drop in software quality.<p>Judging by political positioning, cook’s donation to trump’s inauguration didn’t sit well with the fanbase.<p>Now, it seems Cook is going for shady behavior against judges.<p>Maybe it’s time for a major change of leadership. Financially they might be ok, but one can’t avoid the feeling they’re burning the furniture to heat the house.

Also<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=43852145">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=43852145</a> (<i>&quot;Apple violated antitrust ruling, judge finds (wsj.com)&quot;</i> — 336 comments)

Is there any reason to believe anyone will even get charged, let alone face trial, let alone convicted? And if so is there any reason to believe they won&#x27;t be pardoned upon a conviction?

Ah, but will there be any actual financial penalties against Apple to address the revenue they received as a result of this? Or would developers have to start their own cases to attempt to recover anything?

Will the executive actually face an criminal charges? No they will not.

My biggest takeaway out of this is Jim Jordan in the Senate trying to sneak through antitrust weakening.<p>From the &quot;free market&quot; party from a senator with at least some shame on the red aisle.<p>It really is open season for buying politicians.

I am not sure but it does seem that apple&#x27;s stock price has taken a hit.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;finance.yahoo.com&#x2F;quote&#x2F;AAPL&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;finance.yahoo.com&#x2F;quote&#x2F;AAPL&#x2F;</a><p>Maybe somebody could enlighten me but the off hours part shows -2.3%, is that a correction because people are losing faith in apple or what exactly? and would these off hours loses get converted to on hour losses or what exactly? (Sorry I could ask AI but I might as well ask here as well)<p>So I had done some calculations and please correct me if you think I am wrong but at 4:00 pm USA time (EDT?) the stock was selling at 213.5 open (I am not sure what the differences b&#x2F;w open,close etc. are , I am not a finance guy) but it went from 213.5 open to 207.8 right now<p>Taking the % lose from its peak just at 4 PM EDT &amp; multiplying it by its market cap? 3.19Trillion(1- 207.5&#x2F;213.5 ) is 89_648_711_944 , ie. 89 Billion $.<p>So from my understanding Apple lost 89B $ in like a span of 2 hours (4PM EDT to 5:10-ish PM EDT which is the approx current time while writing this post)<p>That sounds REALLY BIG. Like I used to think damn Trillion $ are a lot but if such a case can cause apple to lose 89B$ in span of 2 hours then either I am doing some calculation wrong or this case has a truly big gravity that its worth not to just skim over it I guess and truly read it at detail I suppose.<p>Just my two cents..

the entire board and executive team needs to be gutted. become too rotten.

John Gruber has a good summary of the ruling: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;daringfireball.net&#x2F;2025&#x2F;04&#x2F;gonzales_rogers_apple_app_store_ruling" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;daringfireball.net&#x2F;2025&#x2F;04&#x2F;gonzales_rogers_apple_app...</a>.<p>My favourite part: &quot;Unlike Mr. Maestri and Mr. Roman, Mr. Schiller sat through the entire underlying trial and actually read the entire 180-page decision. That Messrs. Maestri and Roman did neither, does not shield Apple of its knowledge (actual and constructive) of the Court’s findings.&quot;

Where’s the coercive remedy?<p>Judges always mess this up. They act like their words have power. They issue one injunction, the party violates it in a flagrant manner, then the judge issues a new injunction.<p>You have to impose a coercive doubling fine, or something like that. Say $10 Million on day 1, $20 Million on day two, until compliance is secured.

I wish the government took more steps to fix the monopolizing forces in the system instead of focusing on antitrust.<p>The way the monetary system is set up guarantees that market monopolies will occur. The monetary playing field is centralized and asymmetric. It&#x27;s a basically a system of privilege and handicaps on a broad spectrum. Then people are surprised that those with more privileges keep winning predictably and form monopolies.

Wow that is pretty damning. I understand that they want to protect their revenue, but looks like they screwed up here.

In the first few paragraphs the court states that it is anti-competitive for a company to set its profit margin to a factor that isn&#x27;t linked to the value of its intellectual property.<p>Isn&#x27;t this business 101? Charge what the market will bear? Unclear to me why the court thinks profit margin needs to be a factor of the value of goods&#x2F;services&#x2F;ip, or that the court is even capable of determining what that value is?

App Store has been a cesspool of liars and thieves, criminals and sadists for years, from Phil Schiller to Bill Havlicek and many, many more.

The top brass at Apple just think they are above everyone else. Remember when Tim Cook lied about Apple not giving anyone special terms in the app store and that everyone gets the same deal. And then it came out Netflix was one that got special terms?<p>The sheer arrogance of Apple leaders is astounding. They think they are outright owed rent on anything that runs on an iPhone, iPad, etc. Apple thinks developers are nothing without Apple. Look at how snubbing developers has worked out for the Apple Vision Pro. It was already a niche device, but it&#x27;s a ghost town.

Could a approach of defeat by ablation be countered with parallizing interrogations under oath?

-1 for Apple vs Epic -1 for Apple contempt of FTC Monopoly ruling +1 for Apples DEI stance -1 for Apple going to Trump over DMA rulings in Europe And GTFOH, now Apple is pulling the rug on China and moving most iPhone production to India? If you want to stay on top of the major happenings in Big Tech or chips see my news forum site: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;asiaviewnews.com&#x2F;gigabots&#x2F;threads" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;asiaviewnews.com&#x2F;gigabots&#x2F;threads</a>

Can we go after Apple for the green bubble discrimination? It&#x27;s responsible for the rise of incels...<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.joe.co.uk&#x2F;life&#x2F;sex&#x2F;owning-an-android-is-officially-the-uks-biggest-turn-off-for-2021-307627" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.joe.co.uk&#x2F;life&#x2F;sex&#x2F;owning-an-android-is-official...</a>

I hope he gets criminal charges. The amount of people who lie under oath and get away with it is unacceptable. Lets get all the politicians who lied under oath next as well.

Is it a coincidence that this ruling comes near earnings (which is today)?

Tim Cook has overstayed his welcome. He should have left years ago at this point. That plus the fact that all his successors are built on the same nondescript mold he came out of, does not bode well for the strategic vision of Apple.

In the words of a trial lawyer friend of mine, “Nobody in the history of the world has said, ‘You know what? The judge was right; I was an asshole.’<p>Definitely some of those vibes there. I’ve generally been on team apple for this case, and as Gruber notes, they largely won the case. Dunking on their power to set other contractual fees seems to have come back to bite them. That said, as a user, I strongly prefer to use Apple’s in-app payments — I was just buying a hearthstone purchase from Blizzard; on my laptop it popped up options like “Credit Card or PayPal?” I was like “nah” and loaded it up on my iPad to pay with Apple Pay.<p>Do I hate PayPal? No. Do I appreciate a payment service that shows all my recurring payments in one place, lets me cancel them, and feels generally very safe? Yes. I’m happy to have Apple compete on fair playing field for payments.<p>Summary: Oops.

This is nothing that a donation to a Trump PAC or shitcoin won&#x27;t be able to fix.

&gt; This is an injunction, not a negotiation. There are no do-overs once a party willfully disregards a court order.<p>...<p>&gt; referred the matter to the U.S. Attorney for a criminal contempt investigation.<p>It&#x27;s suddenly become a negotiation again.

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