NY Federal Judge stays e-book class action case against Hachette and HarperCollins

paidContent's Jeff John Roberts reports that New York Federal Justice Denise Cote has stayed the class action suit against HarperCollins and Hachette "on the grounds that the publishers are close to a consumer restitution settlement with state governments."

The state governments' deal trumps the consumer class action, he explains.

The lead class-action lawyer, Steve Berman said, in a letter to Cote, that only part of the proceedings should be suspended because "many states might not take part in the agreement." While Berman said that the two publishers should have to share documents related to the Justice Dept's antitrust investigation, the judge's order will prevent that for now.

It turns out that Hachette and HarperCollins have "entered a memorandum of understanding with several states, and have suggested a deal with all 50 states is imminent.  The publishers would likely have to pay millions under a settlement, but it would allow them to escape the class action proceedings and avoid the risk of a jury award that could be even higher."

So it becomes clearer why they settled right away.

Simon & Schuster hasn't signed a formal memorandum from its talks with the state governments, so it didn't receive a stay.

Macmillan and Penguin are continuing to fight both the class action lawyers and the government, Penguin claiming that the class action "is invalid because users of Amazon Kindle and Barnes & Noble’s Nook agreed to settle any disputes through arbitration."

Apple denies all and has lots of money to cover what should be a long battle.

---

For daily free ebooks, check the following links:

Temporarily-free books - Non-classics USA: by:    Publication Date      Bestselling   High-ratings UK: PubDate   Popular The Kindle Daily Deal What is 3G? and "WiFi"?       Battery Care Highly-rated under $1,  Newest: $1-$2, $2-$3

Most Popular Free K-Books U.S. & Int'l (NOT UK):    Top 100 free UK-Only:    Top 100 free USEFUL for your Kindle Keyboard(U.S. only, currently):   99c Notepad 1.1,   99c Calculator,   99c Calendar,   99c Converter

  *Click* to Return to the HOME PAGE.  Or click on the web browser's BACK button

Below are ways to Share this post if you'd like others to see it.
-- The Send to Kindle button works well only on Firefox currently.

Send to Kindle

(Older posts have older Kindle model info. For latest models, see CURRENT KINDLES page. )
If interested, you can also follow my add'l blog-related news at Facebook and Twitter
Questions & feedback are welcome in the Comment areas (tho' spam is deleted). Thanks!