Apple found guilty of price-fixing conspiracy for electronic books - Telegraph.co.uk

Publishers were concerned that Amazon had devalued their products by establishing the standard price of ebooks as $9.99, but were able to push prices up to $12.99 and in some cases $14.99 after signing the Apple deal. Apple's defence throughout the proceedings was that it wanted to increase choice and lower prices for customers – something it claims it managed to do on bestselling titles. It also tried to downplay the emails written by Mr Jobs, claiming that it was unfair for anyone to be cross-examined on what the technology chief meant, given he is no longer around. In one of the emails which weighed against Apple, Mr Jobs told Mr Murdoch – who, as deputy chief operating officer of News Corp presided over HarperCollins – that they had an opportunity to "create a real mainstream e-books market at $12.99 and $14.99". In another message, drafted but never sent, Mr Jobs accepted certain terms as long as publishers forced Amazon to adopt the same model of pricing. Judge Cote said at the outset of the trial that a trove of emails sent between the publishers and Apple would enable the US government to show that Apple was guilty of conspiracy. She appeared to be shifting position over the course of the trial, offering the Cupertino technology giant a sliver of hope that it could go in their favour. On Wednesday, that sliver disappeared, however. "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," Judge Cote said. "Without Apple's orchestration of this conspiracy, it would not have succeeded as it did in the spring of 2010." Apple will be called to another trial later this year to assess how much it should pay in damages for violating anti-trust laws. Steve Berman, a partner at Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro, who is taking a class-action lawsuit against Apple, told Reuters that the ruling exposed Apple to "hundreds of millions of dollars in damages, which is what we'll ask for". Apple quickly vowed to appeal the decision, however. "We will continue to fight against these false accusations…we've done nothing wrong," a spokesman said. Five publishers were accused of conspiring with Apple – HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, Macmillan, Penguin and Hachette – but all those companies settled with the US Department of Justice before the case went to trial. via Technology - Google News http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&fd=R&usg=AFQjCNHYOOpuQe4zhmPPNi4zcR_pa3yoWA&url=http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/apple/10171727/Apple-found-guilty-of-price-fixing-conspiracy-for-electronic-books.html

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