Lost in the hullaballoo of Apple’s releases of updates to OS X and iOS, as well as the debut of their new Apple Music service on Tuesday, was news that Apple has lost an appeal of the 2013 decision that found the company guilty of conspiring with publishers to fix the price of e-books.
Apple is now expected to pay a $450 million fine originally set in July 2014 to settle the case, with a majority of that settlement earmarked for consumers as part of a class action lawsuit.
The Wall Street Journal reports that Apple filed the appeal in December of 2014, and observers initially expected the appeal to go Apple’s way. However, federal judge Debra Ann Livingston determined that the company did indeed collude with book publishers to keep the prices of e-books higher. Her decision was finalized by a 2-1 ruling in the Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan on Tuesday.
“We conclude that the district court correctly decided that Apple orchestrated a conspiracy among the publishers to raise e-book prices,” wrote Second Circuit Judge Debra Ann Livingston. The conspiracy “unreasonably restrained trade” in violation of the Sherman Act, the federal antitrust law, the judge wrote.
Interested parties may find the full-length court document (PDF) concerning the decision is available at the Wall Street Journal website.
