Apple was found guilty of e-book price fixing by federal judge Denise Cote earlier this month, and it looks like the total bill for colluding with book publishers for the launch of the iBookstore will be pretty steep.
The five publishers in the case – Hachette, Penguin, Random House, HarperCollins and Simon & Schuster – have already paid out $166 million, according to figures obtained by GigaOm. Based on the settlement payments publishers have already shelled out, it looks like Apple might have to pay $500 million to the states and class action lawyers in the case.
A lawyer from Hagens Berman told Jeff Roberts that Apple will face a liability payment of harm to consumers times three, but they get to subtract the the $166.2 million already paid by publishers. The exact details of the damages will be assessed by economists in the court, but it’s likely that Apple will payout hundreds of millions of dollars.
Source: GigaOM
Buster Hein is a freelance writer who lives in Phoenix, Arizona. Twitter: @bst3r.
