“The Justice Department released a document today that characterized criticism by Apple and publishers of a controversial price-fixing settlement as ‘self-serving’ and ill-founded,” Jeff John Roberts reports for paidContent.
“The primary upshot is that the Department is refusing to modify any parts of the settlement agreement despite about 800 comments in opposition to the deal and new political opposition from people like Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY),” Roberts reports. “In its filing, Justice says it addresses Apple’s objections at length because of ‘[Apple’s] central role in the events leading to the underlying enforcement action.’ It also quotes an incident in which Steve Jobs reportedly told publishers, ‘the customer pays a little more, but that’s what you want anyway.'”
Roberts reports, “The Justice Department’s filing largely skates away from issues related to Amazon’s role in the e-book market. It states that public comments suggesting it sue Amazon for abuse of dominant market power or address issues of online sales tax issues are beyond the scope of the antitrust action… The next step in the case is for the proposed settlement to go before Judge Denise Cote who will decide in coming months whether to approve it, reject it or delay approval pending a more detailed fact-finding investigation. In the meantime, the court case against Apple and the publishers will continue as will as a parallel case brought by class action lawyers and state governments seeking tens of millions in damages. Judge Cote has so far appeared hostile to Apple and the non-settling publishers. In refusing to dismiss part of the related case, she referred to Apple and Steve Jobs helping publishers to ‘collude.'”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: As we’ve said from the very beginning of this fiasco: “The U.S. DOJ is plainly inept.”
[Attribution: Daring Fireball. Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Dan K.” for the heads up.]
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