Apple has agreed to pay $450 million to plaintiffs in 33 states, should it be found guilty of an e-book price fixing conspiracy — but that’s a big “if.”
Whether Apple pays that sum will depend on the outcome of a separate lawsuit filed by the Department of Justice, which also accuses Apple of conspiring to inflate e-book prices with several major publishers.
Should that case end in a guilty verdict, Apple will pay $450 million to avert a class-action lawsuit from customers in 33 states who claim they were overcharged by the company.
However, if the case is remanded to a lower court, then the settlement sum will drop to $70 million. If Apple is acquitted of any wrongdoing, the company will pay no settlement at all.
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“This settlement potentially provides for exceptional consumer recovery and ensures an efficient use of judicial resources,” read a court document from the plaintiffs supporting the deal, first reported by the Hollywood Reporter.
Apple was found guilty of price-fixing by a Manhattan court last year, but the company has appealed the ruling and maintained that the government has attempted to “reverse engineer a conspiracy from a market effect.”
