Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Carolyn Kuhl denied motions for a new trial on Tuesday, according to court documents.

The ruling means a March jury verdict awarding $6 million in damages will remain in place while both companies pursue appeals.

The case was brought by a 20-year-old California woman identified in court records as K.G.M., also known as Kaley.

She told jurors she began using YouTube at the age of six and Instagram at nine, and later developed anxiety, depression, body dysmorphia and suicidal thoughts.

Her lawyers argued that features built into the platforms, including algorithmic recommendations, beauty filters, endless scrolling and push notifications, encouraged compulsive use and contributed to her mental health issues.

After hearing the evidence, the jury found both companies negligent and concluded they acted with malice, oppression and fraud.

Jurors awarded $3 million in compensatory damages and a further $3 million in punitive damages, bringing the total award to $6 million.

Meta was assigned 70% of the liability, amounting to $4.2 million, while YouTube was held responsible for the remaining 30%, or $1.8 million.

The trial attracted attention because it was the first to reach a verdict among more than 1,600 related lawsuits filed across the United States by young people, families and school districts.

The litigation accuses social media companies of designing products that encourage addiction among children and teenagers while contributing to mental health problems.

Several senior technology executives testified during the proceedings. Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg spent about eight hours on the witness stand and was questioned about internal company documents showing that Instagram had four million users under the age of 13 in 2015.

Instagram head Adam Mosseri also testified and acknowledged that spending 16 hours a day on the platform could be “problematic.”

Meta said it “respectfully disagrees” with the verdict and plans to appeal. The company argued that teenage mental health is influenced by many factors and cannot be linked to a single app.

Google, which owns YouTube, also intends to challenge the ruling. The company argued that the case “misunderstands YouTube” because it views the service as a streaming platform rather than a social media network.

As it stands, lawmakers and child safety advocates are currently pushing for stronger protections for young users online, including uncompromising age-verification requirements, expanded parental management and changes to platform design.

The ruling, delivered by the Seoul Central District Court in South Korea, adds to a series of cases involving the transfer of advanced chip know-how abroad.

The court found the 56-year-old man, identified by his surname Jeon, guilty of violating the Industrial Technology Protection Act.

Judges said he unlawfully obtained and used Samsung’s DRAM process technology after leaving the company and joining China’s ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT).

Jeon’s case centres on what authorities describe as national core technology. This includes Samsung’s DRAM production process and detailed manufacturing methods known in the industry as process recipes.

The development of the technology reportedly cost around 1.6 trillion won, or about $1.2 billion.

Prosecutors said the former Samsung Researcher worked with others after moving to CXMT and helped draw up a DRAM development plan for the Chinese firm. They also said he was involved in recruiting key personnel during the transition.

Over a period of about six years, he received around 2.9 billion won, or roughly $2.1 million, from CXMT. This included a sign-on payment and stock options.

CXMT is China’s first DRAM-focused semiconductor company. It was set up with large-scale support from local government funding, estimated at about 2.6 trillion won.

The firm has been expanding quickly as China pushes to reduce reliance on foreign chip suppliers.

Authorities in South Korea argued that the leaked information could have helped CXMT speed up development in high-bandwidth memory technology.

That type of memory is now widely used in artificial intelligence systems and high-performance computing.

Samsung Electronics did not comment on the ruling. CXMT also did not respond to requests for comment.

In its judgment, the court stressed the scale of the breach and its wider impact. The judges said, “He acquired core information developed by a major Korean company at enormous cost and had it used by a foreign entity. Because this inflicted losses not only on the company but also on the Republic of Korea, severe punishment is unavoidable.”

This case is not isolated as South Korea has dealt with several similar incidents in recent years involving advanced display and semiconductor technologies. In earlier cases, employees were found guilty of leaking OLED and chip-related data to overseas firms.

Another related case involving a former Samsung employee surnamed Kim is still under review after reaching South Korea’s Supreme Court. He was previously sentenced to six years in prison and fined for similar offences linked to CXMT.

Court records show that Kim’s case was sent back for retrial after the Supreme Court ruled that earlier proceedings did not properly separate key legal elements, including acquisition and disclosure of trade secrets.

South Korean authorities treat semiconductor process technology as national core technology. Officials say this reveals its importance to both industry and national security.

CXMT has expanded despite the legal challenge surrounding its early development. In 2025, the company announced plans to raise about 29.5 billion yuan through an initial public offering in Shanghai.

The funds are expected to support upgrades to production lines and technology development.

This case also adds to a pattern of industrial espionage disputes involving South Korea’s chip sector. In 2012, several individuals were arrested over alleged leaks of display technology. More cases followed in 2020 and 2023, involving both semiconductor and OLED information.

The tech company filed its appeal with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, aiming to overturn a decision that could alter how developers operate within its iOS ecosystem.

The appeal comes in response to U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers’ April 30 decision, which held Apple in contempt for defying a 2021 injunction. 

The original order was intended to prevent Apple from obstructing app developers from directing users to alternative, often cheaper, payment options outside the App Store.

Judge Gonzalez Rogers did not mince words in her ruling. “Apple sought to maintain a revenue stream worth billions in direct defiance of this court’s injunction,” she wrote. She refused Apple’s request to pause the enforcement of her decision, accusing the company of deliberate noncompliance and misleading conduct.

The judge referred Apple and one of its senior executives to the U.S. Department of Justice for a possible criminal contempt investigation—an unusual escalation in corporate litigation that signals the severity of the court’s view on Apple’s conduct.

Apple has rejected the court’s claims, asserting that its App Store rules were not in violation of the injunction and are aimed at ensuring safety and maintaining user trust. In its notice of appeal, Apple did not publicly disclose its full legal reasoning but confirmed that it would challenge the contempt finding in detail.

At the core of the case is a 2020 lawsuit filed by Epic Games, creator of Fortnite, which accused Apple of monopolistic behaviour by restricting developers’ access to third-party payment systems and charging what it described as unreasonable fees. 

The company claimed that Apple’s policies gave it unfair control over app distribution and in-app commerce on iPhones and iPads.

Following the contempt ruling, Apple was ordered to eliminate new practices that the judge deemed obstructive. This included a controversial 27% commission imposed on developers when users completed purchases outside the App Store—a tactic the court viewed as undermining the spirit of the original injunction. 

The judge also banned the use of warning prompts, often labelled “scare screens,” which Apple displayed to dissuade users from using alternative payment options.

The ruling has triggered immediate ripple effects across the tech industry. Companies such as Spotify, which had long criticised Apple’s grip on app payments, are reportedly adjusting their in-app user experiences to embrace the new legal framework and allow external payments.

Neither Apple nor Epic Games responded to media inquiries at the time of filing this report.

The outcome of this appeal carries significant implications for the digital economy. Should Apple fail to overturn the ruling, the decision could reshape how major platforms manage their app marketplaces, setting a precedent that other jurisdictions may follow. 

Meanwhile, the prospect of a criminal contempt probe adds further issues to Apple’s legal standing.