Although Apple have always denied any wrong doing they have today announced they are to settle the class action recently filed against them by 33 US States and Territories regarding the setting of e-book price ‘fixing’. There are also several individuals also looking to sue Apple in an attempt to recover costs for overpaying for their e-books.
Apple have distributed e-books through their ‘iBooks’ platform for both iOS and OS X since November 2009 when iPad caused a rift in the personal technology market with the very first iPad.
Publishers sell their content to major e-book suppliers such as Amazon and Apple, leaving them to set their own onward retail price.
Apple had been cited for conspiring with 5 of the worlds largest publishing houses to set pricing of e-books, in an attempt to prevent Amazon selling the e-books at a loss.
Full details of the e-book class action have not been released by the courts, however it’s known that Apple had been accused of overcharging e-book purchasers a whopping $280m via their illegal price fixing talks.
Although Apple’s CEO Tim Cook had always denied the companies involvement, this settlement is a complete about-turn from Apple.
The publishing houses have also agreed to pay more then $166m to settle the charges filed against them.