Hagens Berman Files Class-Action Lawsuit Against Apple and Publishers

Filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, the lawsuit alleges that the publishers and Apple colluded to increase prices for popular e-book titles to boost profits and force e-book rival Amazon to abandon its pro-consumer discount pricing.

According to the suit, publishers believed that Amazon's wildly popular Kindle e-reader device and the company's discounted pricing for e-books would increase the adoption of e-books, and feared Amazon's discounted pricing structure would permanently set consumer expectations for lower prices, even for other e-reader devices.