- A lawsuit under the U.S. False Claims Act accuses four major publishers (Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley, and Informa) of a decade-long scheme to defraud the government by charging exorbitant article processing charges (APCs), up to 10 times the actual cost.
- The case was unsealed on July 30, 2024, after the government declined to intervene, allowing plaintiff Juan Pablo Alperin to pursue the case independently.
- Alperin, a professor at Simon Fraser University, claims he learned insider details about APC pricing and alleged conspiratorial discussions among publishers to shield free open access options and ensure unnecessary APCs continued.
- The lawsuit alleges publishers used market concentration and copyright terms to fix the market, charging 'prestige prices' that knowingly passed costs to government grants.