Settlement Amount Apple Has To Pay Given Approval

Settlement Amount Apple Has To Pay Given Approva

The $450 million settlement Apple has to pay for the role it played in a conspiracy to fix the prices of e-books was approved recently by a New York federal judge.

The settlement was called fair and reasonable by Manhattan US District Court Judge Denise Cote. The settlement compels the software giant to pay around $400 million to customers who purchased some book titles from 2010 to 2012. The remaining $50 million is for attorney’s fees.

However, an appeal made by the company on the price-fixing ruling in 2013 will determine whether the tech giant has to pay the whole amount or not. If the appeal is successful, the payment will go down to $50 million to consumers while attorney’s fees will go down to $20 million.

The hearing for the appeal on the ruling is scheduled to be held on December 15 in Manhattan. Lawyers of e-book purchasers have hinted that the appeal of Apple will not succeed. The company was found guilty of conspiring to increase prices of e-books with five major publishers. The five publishers, Macmillan, HarperCollins, Hachette, Simon & Schuster and Penguin have already paid a settlement amounting to $166 million.

If the appeal of the tech giant is not successful, customers will have to divide a total of $566 million among themselves. These customers were the ones who purchased specific e-book titles of the five major publishers from April 2010 to May 2012. The period for customers to make their claim already ended a month ago.

Customers who applied for the claim are entitled to $6.54 for every New York Times bestseller they purchased. The amount will go down to less than $1 if the appeal of Apple on the ruling is successful.

Posted by James Fried on Saturday November 29 2014, 11:01 AM EST. Ref: PC World. Link. All trademarks acknowledged. Filed under Featured News, Finance. Comments and Trackbacks closed. Follow responses: RSS 2.0