antitrust

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals denied Apple’s request to stay a lower court order concerning its App Store operations. This ruling impacts Apple’s ability to control in-app purchases by disallowing developers to direct users to external payment options. The ongoing antitrust battle, initiated by Epic Games, is the root of this legal dispute. Apple plans to appeal the decision, disagreeing with the ruling that they violated a previous court order promoting market competition.

A federal jury in Santa Ana ruled in favor of medical device reprocessor Innovative Health in its antitrust case against Johnson & Johnson, finding subsidiary Biosense Webster illegally withheld clinical support from hospitals using reprocessed single-use devices (SUDs). The verdict affirms hospitals’ legal right to adopt FDA-regulated SUDs, promoting cost efficiency, sustainability, and fair competition while challenging anticompetitive tactics by original equipment manufacturers. The outcome is seen as a catalyst to dismantle practices inflating healthcare costs and stifling innovation.