Apple (s AAPL) could get smacked with a $500 million bill from the states and class action lawyers in the ebook pricing suit, based on the amounts that the settling publishers have already paid out.
Earlier this month, federal judge Denise Cote found Apple guilty of colluding with five publishers to fix ebook prices at the launch of the iBookstore. The five publishers named in the case — Hachette, Penguin, Random House, HarperCollins and Simon & Schuster — have already settled and paid damages to the states and in the class action suit. In a document that the court made public Tuesday, the Texas attorney general provided Judge Cote with a chart showing the amounts that the states have agreed to pay. The red markup is by me:
The chart shows that the publishers have paid out over $166 million so far. Earlier this month, a lawyer from Hagens Berman…
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