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Apple ‘s ( AAPL ) hope of clearing its name in the e-book pricing-fixing antitrust case was dashed Monday as the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear its appeal. The high court’s action means Apple must pay $450 million to e-book purchasers as part of the company’s July 2014 agreement to settle damages in the antitrust case brought by the attorneys general of 33 states and territories. E-book buyers will be reimbursed for the higher prices Apple’s conduct caused them to pay through automatic credits at their e-book retailers. They will be able to apply the credits to future purchases, the Justice Department said in a press release . With the $166 million previously paid by the five conspiring publishers to settle claims against them, Apple’s payment will bring to $566 million the amount repaid to e-book purchasers overcharged as a result of Apple’s and the publishers’ illegal conspiracy. “Apple’s liability for knowingly conspiring with book publishers to raise the prices of e-books is settled once and for all,” Bill Baer, assistant attorney general of the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division, said in a statement. “And consumers will be made whole.” The Justice Department filed its civil antitrust lawsuit against Apple and five e-book publishers on April 11, 2012. The department reached settlements before trial with the publishers: Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins Publishers, Holtzbrinck Publishers, Penguin Group and Simon & Schuster. The Justice Department proceeded to trial against Apple before U.S. District Judge Denise Cote of the Southern District of New York on June 3, 2013. Judge Cote ruled the next month that Apple was liable for orchestrating a price-fixing conspiracy with the publishers. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed Judge Cote’s decision on June 30, 2015. Apple negotiated a pricing scheme with publishers ahead of the launch of the iPad tablet and Apple’s e-book store. The companies were attempting to break the monopoly in e-books held by Amazon.com ( AMZN ) through its Kindle e-reader business. Publishers were upset that Amazon was offering e-books of best-sellers for $9.99. The collusion among Apple and the publishers caused the price of e-books to increase 30% to 50% to $12.99 or $14.99 from Amazon’s $9.99 price, the plaintiffs argued. “Apple was caught red-handed orchestrating this scheme to inflate the prices of e-books, and we believe this case is a true testament to the tangible benefits the law can bring consumers,” Steve Berman, an attorney with Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro, said in a statement Monday . The law firm represented a legal class of e-book purchasers and litigated the case with federal and state government lawyers. Image provided by Shutterstock . Scalper1 News
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