“Apple Inc reached an out-of-court settlement with U.S. states and other complainants in an e-book price-fixing class action lawsuit on Monday, effectively avoiding a trial in which the iPad maker faced more than $800 million in claims,” Supriya Kurane reports for Reuters. “U.S. District Judge in Manhattan Denise Cote ordered the parties to submit a filing to seek approval of their settlement within 30 days. The terms of the settlement, which still needs court approval, have not been revealed.”
“The U.S. Department of Justice sued Apple and five publishers in April 2012, accusing them of working together illegally to increase e-book prices,” Kurane reports. “Since then, 33 states and U.S. territories have separately sued Apple on behalf of their consumers, while individual consumers in other states and territories filed a class action lawsuit.”
“Last July, a federal court found Apple liable for colluding with the publishers after a separate non-jury trial in a case brought by the U.S. Department of Justice. Judge Cote found that Apple took part in a price-fixing conspiracy to fight online retailer Amazon.com Inc’s dominance in the e-book market,” Kurane reports. “Apple is appealing that decision and Monday’s settlement is contingent on the outcome of that appeal. ‘As set forth in the memorandum of understanding, any payment to be made by Apple under the settlement agreement will be contingent on the outcome of that appeal,’ Steve Berman of Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro, the plaintiffs’ lead lawyer, wrote in a letter to the judge.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: The fiasco continues…
To paraphrase Scott Turow, the president of the Author’s Guild:
The irony of this bites hard: our government has killed real competition in order to save the appearance of competition.
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