December 19, 2024

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

Posted July 25, 2013 at 5:16pm by iClarified · 7960 views
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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