On October 19 Harlequin responded to a class action-seeking lawsuit launched this summer by three authors — Barbara Keiler, writing as Judith Arnold; Mona Gay Thomas, writing as Gayle Wilson, and Linda Barrett. The suit alleges that the romance publisher deprived them of ebook royalties by funneling agreements through a Swiss-based subsidiary, which “licensed” ebooks to Harlequin’s actual publishing entity. In their reply, Harlequin denied the allegations, said they acted exactly as the contracts provided and sought to dismiss the suit entirely as being without merit. Harlequin’s basic argument is that, since the authors aren’t arguing the contracts were done “in bad […]
