E-Book Purchasers Could Get Up to $3.06 Per Book in Price-Fixing Settlement
On Friday, the US District Court for the Southern District of New York released documentation detailing probable payouts to consumers from the collective settlements of five e-book publishers in a recent price-fixing case. In the case, the Department of Justice and the top attorneys from many states alleged that five publishers—HarperCollins, Hachette, Simon & Schuster, Penguin, and Macmillan—conspired with Apple to keep prices artificially high.
While HarperCollins, Hachette, and Simon & Schuster settled in April 2012, Penguin and Macmillan took a while longer to come to an agreement with the other side. Gigaom notes that the later settlements have not yet been finalized, but are set to be approved on December 6, 2013.
If the settlements from Penguin and Macmillan are finalized, the money will go into a collective fund that will end up totaling $95 million. At that point, customers who purchased New York Times bestsellers from the five publishers between April 1, 2010 and May 1, 2012 will be refunded $3.06 per e-book. “These include titles that were New York Times bestsellers at any time, irrespective of when you purchased the e-book,” the document says. If a customer purchased a non-New York Times bestseller from one of those publishers in that time period, he or she will receive $0.73 per e-book.
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