Amazon said it was confident it would win the case, but chose to resolve it quickly instead of going through potentially years of trial and appeals.

Amazon AMZN-T has reached a historic US$2.5-billion settlement with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, which said the online retail giant tricked customers into signing up for its Prime memberships and made it difficult for them to cancel after doing so.

The Seattle company will pay US$1-billion in civil penalties – the largest fine in the agency’s history – and US$1.5-billion will be paid back to consumers who were unintentionally enrolled in Prime, or were deterred from cancelling their subscriptions, the agency said Thursday.

The surprise settlement comes just days after the trial began in U.S. District Court in Seattle this week. At t

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