Apple for the day

The BBC has an article about Apple's legal issues:

Apple has agreed an out-of-court settlement in a case in which it was being sued by consumers who overpaid for e-books due to price-fixing between the tech giant and publishers.
A court document filed in New York City says a "binding agreement" has been reached.
The amount of compensation offered by Apple was not revealed, but the litigants were thought to have been seeking up to nearly nine hundred million dollars.
Apple has consistently denied any wrongdoing over e-book pricing.
The impending trial, in which 33 states and territories were seeking reparations from Apple on behalf of their citizens, was linked to a separate ruling last year, where a judge said Apple had violated anti-trust laws by striking deals to enable them to charge a higher price for some e-books in its app store.
As well as the authorities taking action, several individuals were also seeking compensation for overpaying in their e-book purchases. The allegation was that Apple, a distributor of e-books, had illegally conspired with five of the biggest publishers to stop Amazon, a dominant force in the market, selling titles at a loss.
Previously, publishers had sold e-books to distributors at a wholesale price, with retailers such as Amazon and Apple able to set their own sale prices.
But the court case heard that the publishers (Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins Publishers, Penguin Group (USA) Inc, Macmillan, and Simon & Schuster Inc) had agreed with Apple to move to an "agency model," in which the publishers agree a minimum retail price with distributors, thus preventing them from offering titles at a loss.
However Apple denied that it was involved in price-fixing, accusing plaintiffs of "false accusations", and is in the process of challenging last July's ruling. The publishers agreed to pay more than a hundred and fifty million dollars to settle charges brought against them.
The out-of-court settlement marks an about-turn from Apple, whose chief executive, Tim Cook, had previously dismissed the idea of reaching an agreement. The firm declined to comment on the decision. Any deal is subject to the outcome of Apple's appeal of last year's case.

Rico says if an appeal is possible, Apple will pursue it...