There has been a lot of talk regarding the recent proposed civil injunction against Apple on July 10 by U.S District Judge Denise Cote regarding e-book price raising conspiracy. The United States has considered reviewing the whole scenario and has offered to ease these terms but Apple officials still believe that the revised plan is still largely unfair against the telecom giant and must be completely rejected.
The ruling was declared in Manhattan after the company was convicted of conspiring against five of the major publishers so as to raise e-book prices. This would have resulted in pricing being undermined. Amazon.com which holds a large proportion of the online book market was one of these publishers whom Apple was convicted of conspiring against.
The U.S department of Justice, through a court file, suggested the injunction to be decreased from 10 years to 5 years with at most five one-year extension if need arises. Furthermore, Cote also suggested that Apple hold extensive negotiations with the publishers and remove any chances of the incident happening again so that things can rightfully go back to the way they were.
The Globe and Mail reports, “But in rejecting other changes that the company wanted, and while expressing a desire not to “unnecessarily harm Apple,” the governments said the Cupertino, California-based company’s continuing refusal to admit it did anything wrong warranted tough medicine.”
“Quite simply, Apple wants to continue business as usual, regardless of the antitrust laws,” the filing suggested by the U.S department of justice said. “This court should have no confidence that Apple on its own effectively can ensure that its illegal conduct will not be repeated. There must be significant oversight by someone not entrenched in Apple’s culture of insensitivity to basic tenets of antitrust law.”
Apple’s perceptive emphasizes the lack of maturity on behalf of the government officials. The unnecessary restriction placed on the company like hiring an external monitor and letting e-book retailers to post hyperlink on their own apps without charge are a clear sign of ‘over reaction’ on behalf of the government. Furthermore, the company will also face restrictions on how it can negotiate for movie and music content.
The Newspaper further states that , “In a separate court filing, Applesaid the proposal for an external monitor “exceeds the bounds of even criminal price-fixing cases,” and reflects an effort “to use this civil injunction to inflict punishment, which is impermissible.”
Apple has said it is appealing from Cote’s July 10 ruling.
The five publishers, all of which have settled with regulators, include Lagardere SCA’s Hachette Book Group Inc., News Corp.’s HarperCollins Publishers LLC, Penguin Random House LLC, CBS Corp.’s Simon & Schuster Inc., and Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck GmbH’s Macmillan.
Since the injunction between Apple and the publishers failed, Cote has set a May 2014 trial to determine damages.”
Source: The Globe and Mail
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