9/23/2023 0 Comments How to exit applewin![]() In Apple’s version of events, the company did “nothing more” than “ out” the publishers’ complaints about Amazon and convey its “openness to pricing above $9.99.” Nothing in the evidence, they stress, definitively shows otherwise.ĭid Apple exploit the publishers’ desire to blunt Amazon’s pricing? Sure-but at no time, Apple attorneys insist, did Apple knowingly join a conspiracy-it was simply trying to enter the e-book market under “rational” business terms. In a recent letter to the Second Circuit, Apple attorneys reiterated that argument, pointing to a recently decided case in another circuit they believe bolsters their contention that case law limits the inferences a judge can make. The key argument Apple will make to the Second Circuit is that case law limits the inferences a judge can make from evidence submitted in antitrust cases, and that Judge Cote relied on too many inferences from too much ambiguous evidence and thus erred in finding Apple liable for a "per se" case of price-fixing. Those higher prices were not the result of regular market forces but of a scheme in which Apple was a full participant.”Īpple’s appeal essentially boils down to this: Judge Denise Cote botched the case. "Through their conspiracy they forced Amazon (and other resellers) to relinquish retail pricing authority and then they raised retail e-book prices. "Apple is liable here for facilitating and encouraging the Publisher Defendants’ collective, illegal restraint of trade," Cote held. Apple, however, fought the charges, and, on July 10, 2013, after a two-week trial, Cote found Apple had violated Section 1 of the Sherman Act. They admitted no wrongdoing, but refunded $166 million to e-book consumers, and submitted to two years of Department of Justice sanctions. The five Publisher Defendants settled the charges against them and avoided trial. ![]() ![]() The 2012 suit alleged that five of the then Big Six publishers, threatened by Amazon’s $9.99 e-book prices, colluded with Apple to simultaneously move the industry to an “agency” model in which the publishers would take control of consumer e-book pricing in conjunction with the 2010 launch of the iPad and the iBookstore. ![]() But Monday’s hearing is the main event: this is Apple’s appeal of Judge Denise Cote’s 2013 liability finding, in which the company was found to have conspired with five major publishers (Hachette, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Penguin, and Simon & Schuster) to artificially inflate e-book prices. If you’ve lost track, you’re probably not alone-there’s been a lot of legal wrangling over the last 18 months. ![]()
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