U.S. Appeal Court Upholds That Apple Conspired to Fix eBook Prices

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Summary: Apple has lost their appeal against antitrust laws for eBook price fixing.

Apple has appealed their violation of antitrust laws, and again lost. The federal appeals court was divided in a 2-1 vote. The 2^nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decided ultimately that Apple did violate federal antitrust laws in a conspiracy with five publishers to fix prices on eBooks.

  

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“While we want to put this behind us, the case is about principles and values,” said Apple in a statement. “We know we did nothing wrong back in 2010 and are addressing next steps.”

They still have the option of appealing it, or otherwise will have to abide by an injunction placed upon them in 2013. The ruling legislated that Apple would have to pay consumers $450 million under a 2014 settlement.

Circuit Judge Debra Ann Livingston wrote for the majority saying that Apple “unreasonably restrained trade,” when it conspired with Lagardere SCA’s Hachette Book Group Inc, News Corp’s HarperCollins Publishers LLC, Penguin Group Inc, CBS Corp’s Simon & Schuster Inc and Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck’s GmbH’s Macmillan.

The dissenting vote, U.S. Circuit Judge Dennis Jacobs, wished to overturn the previous ruling, saying Amazon was pro-competitive in taking on Amazon, which commands 90 percent of the market. “Apple took steps to compete with a monopolist and open the market to more entrants, generating only minor competitive restrains in the process.”

Livingston nevertheless faulted this as in that it “endorses a concept of marketplace vigilantism that is wholly foreign to the antitrust laws.”

News Source: Reuters