Amazon hit with class-action lawsuit over ebook price-fixing
Amazon has been slapped with a class-action lawsuit over accusations it colluded with publishers to fix ebook prices.
The lawsuit, filed in a New York district court, alleges that Amazon and the so-called Big Five publishers — Penguin Random House, Hachette, Harper Collins, Macmillan and Simon & Schuster — agreed to price restraints that cause consumers to overpay for ebooks bought through other retail platforms.
The case was brought by law firm Haegens Berman, which successfully filed a similar suit against Apple and Big Five over ebook price-fixing in 2011.
According to the lawsuit, ebook prices dropped “substantially” in 2013 following the Apple case, but rose again in 2015 after the publishers renegotiated their contracts with Amazon.
It also stated that Amazon accounts for roughly 90 per cent of all ebook sales in the US. This is in addition to its share of more than 50 per cent of the print market.
It comes a day after Connecticut said it was investigating Amazon for potential anti-competitive behaviour in its digital books business.
Amazon declined to comment on the class-action lawsuit when approached by Reuters.
In 2013 the Big Five publishers were forced to pay $166m (£120m) to settle state and consumer charges following the lawsuit involving Apple. The iPhone maker paid out $450m.
It comes as book publishers vie for scale in a cut-throat market increasingly dominated by Amazon.
German media group Bertelsmann last year agreed to buy Simon & Schuster in a $2.2bn deal.