“If Apple was hoping for leniency from the judge ruling on potential remedies in its e-book price-fixing case, it’s looking increasingly likely that it may get some,” John Paczkowski reports for AllThingsD.
“During a hearing in a New York federal court on Tuesday, Judge Denise Cote narrowed the scope of the penalties the Department of Justice wants leveled upon Apple, saying she doesn’t want them to intrude too much into the company’s business operations,” Paczkowski reports. “‘I want this injunction to rest as lightly as possible on how Apple runs its business,’ Cote said. ‘I want Apple to have the flexibility to innovate.'”
MacDailyNews Take: Gee, that’s great, because nobody has proven Apple’s done anything wrong. There should be zero penalty for Apple.
Paczkowski reports, “But on another sanction, an external monitor charged with evaluating Apple’s internal antitrust policies, Cote took a harder line, saying she’s skeptical of the company’s commitment to changing its behavior… Caveat: The monitor would have a far more limited mandate than the one proposed by the government. It would simply oversee Apple’s internal antitrust compliance policies and employee training on them, and only on a limited basis. Hardly the sort of empowered, roving monitor the DOJ requested. So it looks like Apple may have won itself a fair bit relief from the proposed sanctions it has described as ‘wildly out of proportion to the issues and evidence in the case.'”
Read more in the full article here.
Related article:
U.S.A. v. Apple: Judge Denise Cote says Apple needs third-party supervision after ‘blatant’ ebook price fixing – August 28, 2013