http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/22/technology/judge-approves-450-million-settlement-in-apple-e-book-case.html 2014-11-22 02:15:00 Judge Approves $450 Million Settlement in Apple E-Book Case A deal in the antitrust case would give consumers $400 million in cash and e-book credits, and lawyers $50.million. But an appeal is still pending. === A federal judge on Friday approved a settlement in which Apple could begin paying $400 million to as many as 23 million consumers related to charges that it violated antitrust law by conspiring with publishers to raise e-book prices and thwart efforts by Amazon. In the hearing on Friday, Judge Denise L. Cote, the United States District Judge in Manhattan, approved an unusual settlement reached earlier this summer in which Apple agreed to pay $400 million to consumers in cash and e-book credits, and $50 million to lawyers. Those figures could still change, however, if an appeals court overturns a 2013 verdict in the antitrust case, in which Apple was found to have conspired with five major publishers to fix the price of e-books. The appeals court, which will hear Apple’s challenge on Dec. 15, is not expected to change its previous ruling. In the event the appeals court overturns the verdict and returns the case to Judge Cote, Apple would pay only $50 million to consumers and $20 million to the lawyers. Apple initially agreed to pay up to $400 million to settle the class action in June, ahead of a damages trial set for two months later in which attorneys general in 33 states and class-action lawyers were expected to seek up to $840 million. In the hearing on Friday, Judge Cote called the deal an “unusually structured settlement, especially for one arrived at on the eve of trial.” The suit was initiated by the Justice Department in 2012. The settlement appeared to reflect fatigue by Apple, the Justice Department, state attorneys general and class-action lawyers eager to reach a conclusion in a case that has dragged on, in large part because of delays by Apple. An Apple spokeswoman declined to comment on the settlement on Friday. The suit accused Apple of being a “ringmaster” of a conspiracy with the five major publishers to raise the average price of e-books and break free from the $9.99 price that Amazon had made standard for new e-book releases. Simon & Schuster, HarperCollins and the Hachette Book Group settled the day the case was filed; Penguin and Macmillan settled months later. The $400 million will be paid on top of earlier settlements with publishers in the case, which provided $166 million in damages for consumers of e-books. The government’s lawsuit focused on 2010, when Apple entered the digital book industry with the introduction of the iPad and the iBookstore. At that time, publishers’ agreements to sell e-books were made under the so-called wholesale model of print books; publishers charged retailers about half the cover price for a book, and the retailers then set their own prices. But with the iPad and iBookstore, Apple offered publishers a new business model. The government said Apple’s co-founder and then chief executive, Steve Jobs, persuaded publishers to agree to the so-called agency model for selling books, which allowed publishers to set their own prices for e-books. The case was first tried before Judge Cote in July 2013. In her guilty verdict, Judge Cote concluded that Apple had been fully aware of the publishers’ frustration with Amazon’s pricing of $9.99 for new releases because it was eroding the perceived value of their books. She said Apple used that leverage, combined with a tight deadline for the introduction of the iPad, to pressure publishers into agreeing to sell their books through Apple’s iBookstore. “Apple seized the moment and brilliantly played its hand,” Judge Cote wrote in that ruling. The words of Mr. Jobs were resurrected throughout the trial and ultimately proved to be the most damning. Mr. Jobs’s statements and emails were presented by the Justice Department as crucial evidence of a conspiracy. In one instance, Mr. Jobs made comments to a reporter after he introduced the iPad and the iBookstore in January 2010. When asked why consumers would buy an e-book from Apple’s bookstore instead of Amazon.com, Mr. Jobs replied, “The prices will be the same.”