This article doesn't mention controlled digital lending at all, what the entire lawsuit was about, and instead spends a significant chunk of the article on the national emergency library, a program that got like a one sentence mention in the judgment.
I think it was the catalyst for the whole lawsuit though. If they had done just CDL, then I think that the book companies would have just tolerated it.
The logic doesn't even make sense, if their objection was to the NEL they would have sued over that and the lawsuit would have been over four years ago.