ICLE Scholars Submit Amicus Brief Supporting Apple v Epic Request for Emergency Stay
PORTLAND, Ore. (May 15, 2025) — The International Center for Law & Economics (ICLE) submitted an amicus brief today supporting Apple’s request to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for an emergency stay of U.S. District Court Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers’ contempt of court order in the Epic v. Apple case. ICLE President Geoffrey A. Manne offered the following comment regarding the brief:
Judge Gonzalez Rodgers’ order granting Epic’s motion to issue a new injunction against Apple misapplies antitrust principles in a way that will ultimately harm consumers and set problematic legal precedents. It’s worth noting that the injunction is primarily concerned with rectifying a perceived price disparity, rather than with addressing specific contractual restraints that may have distorted competition and hindered innovation within the relevant digital marketplace. Antitrust courts should be fundamentally concerned with preserving market structures and processes that promote economic efficiency and consumer welfare rather than acting as central planners engaged in the direct regulation of prices at the behest of competitors.
The brief highlights two key legal considerations raised by the order:
- Antitrust courts are not price regulators. The order’s zero-price, compelled-access remedy raises serious practical and legal concerns. Forcing a firm to hand over the “source of its advantage” to rivals (without compensation, no less) risks chilling investment and turning courts into ongoing regulators of business relations.
- The new injunction is not directed at the harm found. The court’s first injunction was narrowly tailored to address the specific conduct found to be anticompetitive. The new injunction, by contrast, dramatically broadens the scope of enjoined conduct to include activities (including pricing decisions) not found to be anticompetitive. Except in very narrow circumstances not present here, the Supreme Court has directed lower courts to avoid such complex, long-running behavioral remedies or breakups that do not directly address harm caused by the illegal conduct.
The full brief can be downloaded here. To schedule an interview with Geoffrey or other ICLE scholars about the case, contact Jim Fellinger at [email protected].
About ICLE
The International Center for Law & Economics is a nonprofit, nonpartisan research center working with a roster of more than eighty academic affiliates and research centers from around the globe. ICLE scholars promote the use of law and economics methodologies to inform public policy debates.