There’s an aspect of compensation to it, which is obviously lower than a billion. Then, there’s “punitive” damages, I. e. The wish to hurt the company in excess

There’s an aspect of compensation to it, which is obviously lower than a billion. Then, there’s “punitive” damages, I. e. The wish to hurt the company in excess of individual damages to discourage future behavior. Obviously, actual damages are too low for a company like Apple for a matter such as this to even escalate to the decision level. For me here in Germany, I’d say $10,000 would be around my over/under for being wrongfully arrested. For a black teenager in the US justice system, you’d probably have to double it, but that’s still nothing in the Apple scheme of things. The US is somewhat rare in piggybacking on individual tort law to also regulate corporate wrongdoing, and people often chafe because the individual gets so much more than what seems appropriate. The alternative is empowering agencies to seek fines that go to the government. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is one such attempt, and also an example of what can go wrong with it.