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US DOJ files suit against Apple over eBook pricing
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has filed a price-fixing antitrust lawsuit against Apple and Hachette in New York district court. Bloomberg reports that the suit revolves around alleged collusion to raise the prices of eBooks, and that Harper Collins, Macmillan, and Penguin were also sued. The DOJ warned Apple and the publishers in early March of plans to file the suit; several of the parties reportedly held negotiations in hopes of settling the case; Apple may face similar charges in Europe, thanks to a European Union investigation into the same matter.
Update: the Department of Justice has since announced that Hachette, HarperCollins, and Simon & Schuster have agreed to settle charges in the antitrust lawsuit, pending approval by a New York federal court, according to a Cnet report.
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Regarding the update: no duh they settled. I’m kind of amazed it actually took the DOJ filing the suit to trigger the settlements. Talk about a game of chicken that went on too long. The “agency model”, of which Apple was the key retailer in bringing it about for everyone, is about as text book case of cartel collusion and price fixing as we are likely to see during our lifetimes, certainly among the largest cases (and with no possible chance of any of the accused being found innocent of collusion and price fixing since they were quite open about what they were doing).
Expect a torrent of settlements with Collins and Schuster already backing down. Not sure what Apple is waiting for as they stand a very good chance of becoming the “scape goat” since if they hadn’t been so gung ho to find the path of least resistance to making certain the iBook store could be rushed to market with a catalog comparable to veterans like B&N & Amazon this would have never become reality.
Posted by Code Monkey in Midstate New York on April 11, 2012 at 6:38 PM (PST)