Apple Could Face Nearly $500 Million in Damages in E-Book Case

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Posted July 25, 2013 at 5:16pm by iClarified

After being found guilty of fixing E-Book prices, legal experts are estimating that Apple could owe up to $500 million in damages.

Based on amounts that settling publishers have already paid, Apple could pay the $490 million bill from the states and class action lawyers. The five publishers Apple was found guilty conspiring with included Hachette, Penguin, Random House, HarperCollins and Simon & Schusterall which have already paid there damages.

Earlier this month, a lawyer from Hagens Berman — the class action firm in the case — told my colleague Jeff Roberts that Apple would likely face a liability payment of harm to consumers times three, minus the $166 million already paid out by publishers. On Wednesday, Law360 reported (paywall) the same thing, calculating that if Apple loses its appeal it would face about $490 million in damages. I annotated the chart above with those figures.

Apple has indicated that it will appeal the guilty ruling, and it is likely that this case will be dragged out for many months to come.

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Apple Could Face Nearly $500 Million in Damages in E-Book Case

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Mab - July 29, 2013 at 7:40am

Greeds

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gamerscul9870 - July 26, 2013 at 6:34am

Thank god they have profits and it wouldn't hurt them to use it I hope, but until NOW, damages? After all the updates, from ios? why?

Bugged Out - July 25, 2013 at 7:42pm

So what? They made billions in profits in books before getting caught.

The Voice Of Reason - July 25, 2013 at 6:28pm

The law is the law, and when it's broken there are consequences. The argument here is not whether the law is fair, socialist, or whatever, but whether it was indeed broken. Let's remember that we do not have all the facts, and those that did arrived at the judgment that Apple and the publishers acted in a manner contrary to the law. Of course, it shouldn't be surprising, the whole iBook Store pricing was pretty counter-intuitive from the very beginning. Unfortunately the pricing model has now been set, and it is very unlikely to go back down to the levels that it would have been if this "smokey back room" deal had never taken place.