Supreme Court Declines to Hear Apple’s Appeal – Apple Due to Pay Out $450M

The Supreme Court on Monday refused to review an appeals court’s original decision that Apple had conspired with five different book publishers to raise the prices of digital books. This means they are still on the line to pay out $450 million as part of the settlement.

The court’s decision not to hear the appeal leaves in standing a June 2015 ruling by the New York-based 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that favored the U.S. Department of Justice and found Apple liable for engaging in a conspiracy that violated federal antitrust laws.

“Apple’s launch of the iBookstore as a platform for tens of millions of consumers to buy and read digital books on the iPad dramatically enhanced competition in the e-books market, benefiting authors, e-book publishers and retail consumers,” Apple said in its petition seeking a Supreme Court review. “Following Apple’s entry, output increased, overall prices decreased and a major new retailer began to compete in a market formerly dominated by a single firm.”

“If a new firm’s entry disrupts a monopoly and creates long-term competition, that is to be lauded, whether the previous prices were artificially high or artificially low,” the brief said.

The appeals court did not aggree. “Competition is not served by permitting a market entrant to eliminate price competition as a condition of entry, and it is cold comfort to consumers that they gained a new e-book retailer at the expense of passing control over all e-book prices to a cartel of book publishers,” Judge Debra Ann Livingston wrote for the majority.