A Federal U.S. judge on Friday approved Apple’s settlement appeal which would see the Cupertino shelling out up to £262.7 ($450) million to resolve claims of its conspiration with publishers to raise e-book prices.
During a hearing on Friday, Judge Denise L. Cote of Federal District Court in Manhattan, gave a green signal to an unusual settlement which calls out the Cupertino to pay $400 million to as many as 23 million consumers in cash and e-book credits, and $50 million to lawyers if the company is unsuccessful in appealing a ruling that found it guilty of breaking antitrust laws.
However, if Apple is successful in its appeal and overturns the previous ruling, then it will only have to pay $70 million in total- $50 million to consumers and $20 million to the attorneys.
Apple had agreed to the $400 million settlement in June, ahead of a damages trial set for two months later in which attorneys general in 33 states and territories and lawyers for a class of consumers were expected to seek up to $840 million.
The 2011 lawsuit accused Apple of colliding with five top publishers including Simon & Schuster, HarperCollins, the Hachette Book Group, Penguin and Macmillan in 2009-2010 to fix electronic book prices in an attempt to break into rival Amazon’s dominance of the market.
Judge Cote called the deal an “unusually structured settlement, especially for one arrived at on the eve of trial,” during the Friday hearing.
A federal appeals court is scheduled to hear Apple’s appeal on December 15.
