Australia's Federal Court orders Apple to open iOS and restore Fortnite by March 2027

The Federal Court of Australia has ordered Apple to dismantle the closed iOS distribution model it has defended for more than a decade, ruling that the company must admit third-party app stores, allow apps to be installed from the open web and permit alternative payment methods for Australian users by noon Australian Eastern time on 1 March 2027. The Law Society Journal reported on October 23 that the 217-page judgment (2026 FCA 1552), delivered by Justice Jonathan Beach on 22 October 2026, found that Apple Inc had engaged in conduct contravening section 46(1) of the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 in the market for app distribution services on iOS and in the market for iOS in-app payment solutions.

The decision closes the remedies phase of a case Epic Games brought in the United States in 2020, challenging Apple's control over transactions inside applications that run on iOS and the restrictions it places on how those apps reach consumers. Reuters reported on October 22 that the dispute has since drawn scrutiny from courts and regulators in a number of markets, including the European Union, the United Kingdom and Australia. The Australian remedies ruling follows a liability judgment in August 2025, in which the same court found that both Apple and Google had misused their market power in the operation of their mobile app stores.

That liability finding described a system built on terms developers could not negotiate. Anyone wanting to distribute software to iOS users had to go through the App Store, sign a licence agreement with non-negotiable terms and comply with App Store Review Guidelines. The guidelines prevented users from reaching content, subscriptions or features bought on a developer's own website or through another distribution channel unless the same items were also offered as in-app purchases inside the App Store. The terms also required developers to appoint Apple Inc and Apple Pty Limited as their agent for the marketing and delivery of their apps to Australian iOS users. Apple's commissions ran between 15 and 30 per cent.

Fortnite has been absent from Australian iPhones for six years, after Epic inserted a direct payment option into the game in defiance of Apple's rules and Apple removed it. The remedies judgment ends that absence. Epic said Fortnite would return to the Australian App Store on 23 October 2026, and chief executive Tim Sweeney described the outcome on X as 'a huge victory for consumers and developers'.

Key Facts

TechRadar reported on October 23 that the orders take effect at noon Australian Eastern time on 1 March 2027, with a possible extension to 3 May if the court approves one, and that Apple has until 15 February 2027 to lodge an appeal. The orders require Apple to take all steps necessary to let Epic Games and any other developer use payment methods other than Apple's own in-app purchase system. They also allow Australian users to download apps directly from developers and from rival app stores, and they bar Apple from charging fees on purchases made through third-party stores.

ABC News reported on October 23 that Justice Beach ordered Apple to pay 85 per cent of Epic Games' legal costs from the months-long trial, in a decision affecting an estimated 15 million Australian Apple users. Capital Brief reported on October 22 that the costs covered by that order could top A$2 million, or roughly US$1.3 million. The timetable is staged: Apple must complete the changes by March 2027, and the court has left room for a short extension into May.

The judgment does not merely state a principle. It names and prohibits the mechanisms Apple has used in other jurisdictions to blunt similar orders: a Core Technology Fee of 50 euro cents per first annual install, a 27 per cent commission on transactions completed through external websites, disclosure sheets, forcing developers into new bundled contracts in order to use alternative distribution, requiring developers to display Apple's In-App Purchase button alongside their preferred payment method, and forcing developers to appoint Apple as their legal agent for marketing and delivery. Justice Beach called such measures 'deterrence tactics' that blocked 'any genuine prospect of competition'.

The reasoning is unusually direct about how the company behaves when it is constrained. 'In response to regulatory or judicial constraints imposed in connection with the App Store that are anything other than detailed, prescriptive and precise, Apple has systematically implemented practices that seek to circumvent the practical effects of those constraints,' the ruling read. Beach also found that Apple 'devised and pursued a deliberate and comprehensive strategy of foreclosure in relation to iOS app distribution', and described the company's conduct towards Epic as 'a paradigm example of its enforcement of the restrictive terms'.

Apple said it disagreed with many of the court's findings. 'We will request a stay and appeal the outcome to seek a resolution that respects our intellectual property and protects the safe, secure experience that consumers and developers expect from the App Store,' an Apple spokesperson told Reuters on October 22. The company also said it 'does not have a monopoly position in Australia or in any market around the world'. During the case Apple cited security and intellectual property concerns in its defence of the existing rules.

Analysis

What this really means is that the argument has moved on from whether Apple's walled garden is lawful to what a court has to write down to make Apple actually open it. Earlier interventions produced broad obligations, and Apple answered them with fee structures, disclosures and contractual requirements that preserved much of its control in practice. Justice Beach's orders read as a direct response to that pattern. They are prescriptive, they are specific, and they name the workarounds in advance, which is the part regulators watching from other capitals will study most closely.

The commercial effect in Australia is smaller than a European Union-wide change because the local market is more compact, but the legal effect travels further. The judgment is a long reasoned decision delivered after a months-long trial, and it rests on findings about conduct rather than on a single jurisdiction's statutory scheme. When a court documents a strategy of circumvention and then drafts remedies around it, other courts and competition authorities have a template to work from, and platform operators have fewer places to hide behind generic compliance language.

Apple's room to manoeuvre is real but narrowing. Its stated plan is to request a stay and appeal, and the appeal deadline of 15 February 2027 sits two weeks before the orders take effect. A stay, if granted, would pause the March timetable while an appeal runs. Yet the ruling gives the company little space to repeat the pattern the court has now documented, because the prohibited list is closed and specific rather than general. Apple's public position, that it holds no monopoly in Australia or anywhere else, is a claim an appeal can test, but it does not answer the section 46 findings about the contracts and technical measures the judge examined.

The case also leaves a second front open. A parallel class action brought by Australian developers will proceed once the present proceedings conclude, and Joel Phibbs, a principal at Phi Finney McDonald, one of the law firms representing those developers, called the ruling 'a win for Australian app developers and consumers who will continue to pursue claims for compensation in the stage 2 proceeding'. Epic, for its part, settled its case against Google in March. Of the Australian orders, Epic said: 'This is great news for developers worldwide and iOS users in Australia who will benefit from an open mobile app ecosystem.'

Why It Matters

The immediate stakes are practical for roughly 15 million Australian Apple users, who will be able to install software from the open web and from stores other than Apple's own from March 2027. For developers, the change attacks the economics at the centre of the case: commissions of 15 to 30 per cent on digital transactions, and rules that pushed payments through Apple's system. The court also ordered Apple to pay 85 per cent of Epic's liability-trial costs, a figure that could exceed A$2 million, which puts a visible price on contested enforcement for a company that has rarely faced one.

The harder question is what counts as compliance. The finding that Apple systematically circumvented constraints that were not detailed, prescriptive and precise will be read closely in the European Union, the United Kingdom and Australia, the markets Reuters identified as having scrutinised the dispute. It suggests that broad principles invite workarounds, and that specificity is the difference between a remedy and a press release. For platform operators, the lesson is that drafting fees and disclosure forms to preserve an old position can become evidence in the next round of litigation.

There is a wider point about app store competition in Australia specifically. The August 2025 liability ruling covered both Apple and Google, and Epic's settlement with Google in March removed one defendant from the remedies fight. With Apple's orders in place, the Australian market becomes a test of whether rival stores and direct downloads actually attract users once the legal barriers fall, and whether the fees the court barred reappear in another form.

Next Up

Attention now turns to the appeal window. Apple has until 15 February 2027 to challenge the orders, and it has said it will seek a stay. If a stay is granted, the noon deadline on 1 March 2027 slips and the Australian changes wait on appellate argument. If it is not, Apple must have third-party distribution, sideloading and alternative payments running within roughly four months of the judgment. The court has also allowed for an extension to 3 May if it approves one.

Fortnite, meanwhile, is already back. Epic said the game would return to the Australian App Store on 23 October 2026, ending a six-year absence that began when the company routed payments around Apple's system. The stage 2 class action is next in line once the Epic proceedings close, with compensation claims from Australian developers still to be heard.