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Now everyone can sue Apple

by on31 March 2014



Ebook price cartel

A US judge has granted a group of consumers who were shafted by Steve Jobs’ attempts to screw money out of them by setting up a cartel the right to sue Apple in a class action.

While the publishers have admitted taking part in the cartel, Apple has always denied it. So far all the law suits have come from the Justice Department and state regulators, now a Federal Judge has given a group of ordinary people a chance to sue Apple.

U.S. District Judge Denise Cote said the plaintiffs had "more than met their burden" to allow them to sue as a Apple and the publishers in the cartel. She rejected Apple's contentions that the claims were too different from each other, or that some plaintiffs were not harmed because some e-book prices fell.

She said that this was a “paradigmatic antitrust class action," wrote Cote. If they win then damages could reach hundreds of millions of dollars. In July 2013, Cote found the technology company liable for colluding with the publishers after a separate non-jury trial in a case brought by the US Department of Justice. Cote found that Apple took part in a price-fixing conspiracy to fight online retailer Amazon.com dominance in the e-book market.

Apple is appealing that ruling. It is having difficulty with the concept that Steve Jobs might have done something so completely evil to consumers when it says on their press release that Apple loves its customers.

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