With the final verdict by the Supreme Court last day, Apple lost its battle and has been penalized to pay a sum of $450M. As per the norms of the original settlement agreement in 2014, the company has to provide $400 million to its e-book customers, $30 million as legal pay and $20 million for the respective states involved in the lawsuit. The case was filed in the US Supreme Court last of October hoping to retrieve the whole $450 Million which now Apple has to pay as ransom money.
The U.S. District Judge Denise Cote along with Justice Department found Apple guilty of hiking the e-book prices without appropriate reason ganging up with the publishers in an investigation conducted in 2013 of July.The probe also unveiled the emails from the then CEO of Apple Steve Jobs discussing the confidential points of the affair.
It was clear that the company had to prevent sites like Amazon from undercutting the rates of books and reselling them. Keeping this in mind, Apple and book publishers introduced agency model policy for their iBookstore launching, which obstructed the sites from cutting down the cost. Apple was not in favor of $ 10 price tag scheme of Amazon. As a result of this play the standard prices went several dollars higher. This caused the government to move legally against Apple. With the court and government against the company, Apple switched back to the “wholesale model” of Amazon forcing to leave back its tactics.
