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Given that they are now going to face a class action lawsuit and hundreds more of these, $30,000 would have been cheap for his silence.

The question isn't what he has to gain, it is what they stood to lose.

In most cases, they have very little. I may hate Comcast, but if I have the misfortune of moving into a place and they're the only game in town, it's basically tough luck. Could rant and rave all day about how terrible everything is, but I have to have internet for work either way.

The second offer included a "confidentiality agreement", which I would associate a large negative value with, personally. So the court's judgement was significantly higher than what the company wanted to settle for.

That's fair.

Well, if they'd gone high enough, neither you nor I would be sitting here right now reading this piece of negative publicity about Bell.

Not counting damages to reputation

(1 - P) * 1110 + (cost of additional legal fees)

Where P is Bell's probability of winning.