In a lawsuit brought against Apple Inc (NASDAQ: AAPL), the tech company has agreed to pay $450 million according to the court decision made Wednesday.

The lawsuit involved the US state and consumer claims that Apple colluded with five well known publishers to fix the prices of e-books. The lawsuit was filed in April of 2012 on behalf of thirty three United States states and United States territories, as well as consumers at the Manhattan Federal Court. They are seeking up to $840 million in compensation from the iPhone and iPad maker.

The publishers in question include Lagardere SCA’s Hachette Book Group Inc, Penguin Group (USA) Inc, News Corp’s HarperCollins Publishers LLC, Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck GmbH’s Macmillan, and CBS Corp’s Simon & Schuster Inc.

The US District Judge, Denise Cote, was informed in June that both parties signed a binding agreement to fix the prices of ebooks. Details of the agreement was received by the court today.

This settlement shows that even the most powerful companies in the world cannot slip by the law, despite their immense authority. If it goes through, the settlement will result in Apple reimbursing millions of dollars to unfortunate consumers to compensate them for paying illegally inflated prices for e-books.

However, this settlement is conditional on the result of Apple’s appeal. Apple appealed the decision of Judge Cote last year on a case submitted by the US DOJ, or the United States Department of Justice. The judge ruled in July of 2013 that the giant tech company colluded with publishers to fix e-book prices before they entered the market, to compete against e-book competitors such as online retailer Amazon Inc (NASDAQ: AMZN). This was decided to be a violation of the antitrust law.

If the appeals court maintains Judge Cote’s ruling, Apple will have to pay $400 million to consumers. The company will pay only $50 million if the appeal is accepted and the case goes back on trial. If the court overturns the ruling and decides that Apple did not violate any antitrust laws, Apple will pay nothing.

George Jepson, the District Attorney of Connecticut, stated that while they cannot guarantee the outcome of the appeal with one hundred percent certainty, they are confident in the case they made at trial against Apple.

Kristin Huguet, a spokeswoman for Apple, insisted the company’s view that they did nothing wrong. “We did not conspire with publishers in fixing the prices of e-books. We believe a fair assessment of facts will show it, ” she said in a statement.

Apple refused to respond immediately to a call for comment.

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