November 11, 2021: -Apple will be forced to allow app developers to link to alternative payment websites, which enables software companies to come down to 15% to 30% fee that Apple charges for digital transactions through its App Store.

A federal judge in Oakland, Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, is rejecting Apple’s appeal for a stay that would delay the court-ordered change on Tuesday, meaning that it will go into effect in December.

“In short, Apple’s motion is based on the reading of this Court’s findings and ignores all of the findings supporting the injunction, namely incipient antitrust conduct which include supercompetitive commission rates resulting in extraordinarily high operating margins and which has not been correlated to the value of its intellectual property,” Rogers wrote in the order, which calls Apple’s motion “fundamentally flawed.”

In September, Rogers ruled in favor of Apple for nine of 10 counts in an antitrust trial brought by Epic Games. Epic seeks to install its app store on iPhones, and both sides are now appealing the decision.

On Tuesday, Apple attorney Mark Perry said it would be a complicated process allowing links to outside payments on the App Store and said Apple needed more time.

“It is exceedingly complicated,” Perry said. “There have to be guard rails and guidelines to protect children, to protect developers, to protect consumers, to protect Apple,” Perry added.

Rogers expressed skepticism and said that Apple was asking to delay the changes for five years.

“Other than, perhaps, they need time to establish guidelines, Apple has provided no credible reason for the Court to believe that the injunction would cause the professed devastation,” Rogers wrote on Tuesday.

The injunction doesn’t necessarily mean app developers won’t have to pay App Store fees, even if they provide their credit card processing.

 Apple said in an argument that it would need time to build new software and policies to replace its in-app payments.

In South Korea, Google’s Android app store was forced to offer off-platform payments due to new government regulations. Even if they handle their billing, developers pay Google 11% of gross transactions when the policy goes into effect in 2022.

Apple said that it “believes no additional business changes should be required to take effect until all appeals. We intend to ask the Ninth Circuit for a stay based on the circumstances.”