Apple Reaches Settlement In E-books Lawsuit - Update

(RTTNews) - Apple Inc (AAPL) has reached a settlement in a civil class-action lawsuit related to the pricing of e-books.

In a filing with a New York court on Monday, the attorney representing consumers in many states said both sides reached a tentative deal.

The lawsuit charges Apple and certain U.S. book publishers with conniving to raise the price of best selling e-books on the iPad, thereby restricting Amazon.com (AMZN)'s ability to offer lower priced e-books to consumers.

The details have not emerged as to the deeper terms of Apple's settlement, which has been filed under seal.

The plaintiffs had been seeking $840 million from Apple, claiming that the company overcharged consumers by about $280 million for e-books.

Nevertheless, the settlement is contingent upon a decision in a separate Justice Department antitrust case, in which prosecutors charged Apple and U.S. book publishers Hachette, HarperCollins, Holtzbrinck, Macmillan, Penguin Group and Simon & Schuster of colluding to raise prices of best sellers, and in which a judge had ruled against Apple.

Meanwhile, the Justice Department did not seek monetary damages but asked the court to adopt preventive measures. In a ruling last year, Apple was found liable to claims by the states that had joined the suit.

In the antitrust lawsuit filed more than two years ago, Justice Department argued that Apple let publishers set prices themselves and as a result, Amazon lost the ability to price most e-book best sellers at $9.99. As per the lawsuit, the five publishers and Apple conspired to price best-sellers in the range of $12.99 or $14.99 and put pressure on Amazon to follow a similar pricing model.