A New York federal judge ruled that Apple and five major book publishers conspired to inflate ebook prices in the months before the iPad was launched.
In April 2012, the Justice Department filed an antitrust lawsuit against Apple and publishers Simon & Schuster, HarperCollins, Hachette, Pearson PLC's Penguin Group (USA) and Macmillan, claiming that they all worked together to make the prices of ebooks higher than they should be, just before the industry was about to explode with the introduction of the iPad.
U.S. District Judge Denise Cote in Manhattan agreed, ruling in favor of the Justice Department and other states, reports Reuters. She ruled that the conspiracy had led Apple and the publishers to sell ebooks for the iPad for $12,99, higher than the $9.99 price Amazon had been selling the same books for.
“The plaintiffs have shown that the publisher defendants conspired with each other to eliminate retail price competition in order to raise e-book prices, and that Apple played a central role in facilitating and executing that conspiracy,” Cote wrote in a 160-page decision, reports The Hollywood Reporter. “Without Apple's orchestration of this conspiracy, it would not have succeeded as it did in the Spring of 2010.”
The publishers did settle with the government, but Apple didn’t. Instead, Apple’s case went to trial last month.
Apple hasn’t commented on the ruling, which you can read here.
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