A U.S. District Court judge found that Apple intentionally violated her ban in the case filed by the epic game, while Apple's top executives "lied outright" to take the oath.

The ban should prevent Apple's anti-competitive behavior and pricing, opening app stores to external payment options.

Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers said she forwarded the matter to U.S. attorneys in the northern region of California to investigate the appropriateness of criminal contempt procedures.

Apple responded to the ruling late Wednesday.

An Apple spokesman said: "We strongly disagree with this decision. We will comply with the court's order and we will appeal."

Wednesday's verdict refers to the 2021 case brought by Epic Games, the maker of Fortnite, one of the world's most popular games, which believes that third-party payment options should be offered to customers.

It challenges up to 30% of Apple's challenges from purchases - and believes that the App Store is monopoly.

Judge Gonzalez Rogers said in his 2021 verdict that Apple no longer bans developers associated with its own purchasing mechanism.

Another example of how it will work besides buying a game is a movie streaming service that can tell customers to subscribe through their own website without using Apple's in-app purchase mechanism.

In a contempt order issued on Wednesday, Gonzalez Rogers found that Apple continued to interfere in competition with court attempts that "will not tolerate."

Judge Gonzalez Rogers added that internal company documents she reviewed showed Apple intentionally violated the ban.

The documents show: "Apple knows exactly what it is doing, and each has chosen the most anti-competitive option."

She said CEO Tim Cook ignored Chief Executive Phillip Schiller's urge to comply with the ban and allowed Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri to convince him not to do so.

“Cook’s choice was not good,” she wrote.

She also said that Apple's vice president of finance Alex Roman was "swallowed in".

An example of Apple's attempt to evade the ban includes a decision to charge a commission on non-app purchases on 27% of the committee, the judge wrote. Nothing was charged before.

She said the company has also implemented new barriers and requirements to prevent customers from using competitive procurement platforms.

Epic Games will return Fortnite to the US iOS App Store next week and provide an olive tree for his long-time competitor, Tim Sweeney, founder and CEO of Epic Games, said in a post on X.

"Epic has proposed a peace proposal: If Apple expands the court's frictionless, Apple-free tax framework globally, we will return "Fortnite" to the global App Store and conduct current and future lawsuits on the subject," Sweeney wrote.

He wrote in another article: "There is no fee for online transactions. The game of Apple's tax is over. Apple's 15-30% junk fee is now as dead as the United States in Europe under the Digital Markets Act.