US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers sided with Epic Games on 1 May, ruling that Apple “willfully” violated her earlier injunction by creating fresh anticompetitive barriers designed to keep its cash cow alive. In a blistering 80-page judgment, she accused Apple of defying the court “with the express intent to create new anticompetitive barriers” and referred the case to federal prosecutors in San Francisco. The US attorney’s office has so far declined to comment.

Gonzalez Rogers called Job's Mob's behaviour a “gross miscalculation” and accused its executives of lying in court. “Apple, despite knowing its obligations thwarted the injunction’s goals, and continued its anticompetitive conduct solely to maintain its revenue stream,” she wrote.

The judge singled out Apple, vice president of finance, Alex Roman for perjuring himself on the stand. She said Roman falsely claimed Apple never analysed alternative payment processing costs when it had. The court ruled that Apple’s legal team knowingly allowed those lies to stand, effectively adopting them.

In practical terms, the ruling means Apple must stop charging developers a 27 per cent commission on purchases made outside its App Store, where developers had been nudged to link out for payments while still paying Apple. That cut, a cynical workaround to the original injunction, has now been tossed.

The fallout could put a serious dent in Job’s Mob’s multibillion-dollar App Store racket, which has been a reliable revenue gusher. The company is facing another looming hit from the Justice Department’s separate antitrust suit against Google, which could unravel billions in annual payments made to keep Google Search the default in Safari.

Epic chief executive, Tim Sweeney called the latest ruling a “huge victory for developers,” adding that it “forces Apple to compete with other payment services rather than blocking them.”

The original 2021 ruling was upheld by the US Supreme Court last year, which refused to hear Apple’s appeal. But the company’s supposed compliance amounted to little more than smoke and mirrors. Gonzalez Rogers ruled that Apple had “attempted to cover up its noncompliance,” including abusing attorney-client privilege to stonewall document production.

Apple hasn’t commented, but with federal prosecutors now involved it might actually have to listen to something other than the voices in its own head.