“Apple aced its e-book antitrust appeal,” Philip Elmer-DeWitt reports for Fortune. “Two of three appellate judges seemed inclined to see things Apple’s way.”
“My colleague Roger Parloff, who has seen more than his share of appellate hearings, was surprised how well this one went for Apple,” P.E.D. reports. “‘Judges Jacobs and Raymond Lohier seemed quite concerned that Judge Cote had used the wrong standard, but Jacobs’s qualms clearly went much further—seeming to question the government’s judgment in ever having brought the case. His problem was that Apple was a new entrant that was bringing competition to a market that had been, until then, dominated by a ‘monopolist,’ Amazon. Judge Jacobs also repeatedly referred to Amazon’s $9.99 pricing policy, whereby it sold books at below the wholesale acquisition cost, as ‘predatory pricing,’ and seemed to suggest that Amazon was obviously using it as a means of maintaining its monopoly dominance.'”
“At times Judge Jacobs came close to suggesting that the government had prosecuted the wrong company,” P.E.D. reports. “The third judge, Debra Ann Livingstone, said less, and what she did say seemed more in line with the district court’s perspective… At the end of the 80-minute hearing, the justices reserved their decision, which could take as long as six months.”
Read more in the full article here.
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