The most important takeaway from the second day of the A3 antitrust trial echoes a point we made the first day, which is that Judge Florence Pan is clearly very smart, learning quickly about publishing, and not allowing herself to be distracted by posturing from either side of the dispute. In the opening session on Tuesday morning, at the end of testimony and cross-examination from literary agent Ayesha Pande, Judge Pan had inferred, “Is it correct that if Simon & Schuster and Penguin Random House were merged, it wouldn’t have affected any of the deals?” (The answer was, yes.) Then […]