Apple is bending the knee to the law as they start paying out customers to the tune of $400m due to price fixing of eBook purchases via iBooks.
Apple is set to cough up more than $400m USD back to customers from today onwards. Back in 2013, Apple was found guilty of anticompetitive behavior centered around eBook pricing and price-fixing. After trying to dodge the legal bullet all the way to the Supreme Court the law put the company on the hook for $450m USD (which includes $20m back to state authorities and $30m in legal fees). Apple was first hit with the antitrust lawsuit because of its “œagency model“ of eBook pricing and accusations that it was working with publishers to artificially raise the prices of eBooks.
After trying to dodge the legal bullet all the way to the Supreme Court the law put the company on the hook for $450m USD (which includes $20m back to state authorities and $30m in legal fees). Apple was first hit with the antitrust lawsuit because of its “œagency model“ of eBook pricing and accusations that it was working with publishers to artificially raise the prices of eBooks.
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The money will be handed out to customers who purchased books from Amazon, Kobo, Barnes & Noble, and Apple. Payments will either be sent direct to customer iTunes accounts or a check will be mailed, depending on how the customer responded to an earlier survey. Qulaifying customers are those who purchased eBooks between April 1, 2010 and May 21, 2012 (from publishers: Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins Publishers, Macmillan (Holtzbrinck Publishers), Penguin Group and Simon & Schuster). They will receive $6,93 USD for every New York Times best seller purchased and $1,57 USD for every other eBook.
Qulaifying customers are those who purchased eBooks between April 1, 2010 and May 21, 2012 (from publishers: Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins Publishers, Macmillan (Holtzbrinck Publishers), Penguin Group and Simon & Schuster). They will receive $6,93 USD for every New York Times best-seller purchased and $1,57 USD for every other eBook.
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Apple initially argued that the lawsuit was fundamentally flawed, explaining that the ruling was a “œradical departure“ from modern antitrust law and that it was ignorant of any inter-publisher price-fixing. Over the past 3 years various evidence was used in the case, including Steve Jobs emails, Eddy Cue interviews, and much more. In 2014 Apple already started sending out iTunes credits, even though the case was still pending.
Source: 9to5Mac
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