Sarah Weinman

In a letter to Judge Cote posted to the court docket on June 12, assistant attorney general for the State of Texas David Ashton responded to Apple’s request earlier in the week — one that mirrored our own — as to what, exactly, the states want out of the ongoing trial. Ashton said the states are “well aware the Court will decide only issues of liability and injunctive relief as part of the trial, and do not seek relief different than that sought from the Department of Justice.” Mostly they want a judgment that sets them up to seek money […]

Apple executive Eddy Cue took the stand Thursday morning to answer questions about his negotiations with the five settling publishers and offer his version of how Apple came to agency model and what they expected from publishers. (As an aside, Cue too came in court attire, rather than his standard jeans and casual shirt–to be honest, the grey suit and white shirt is a much better look than his standard “dress like Steve” uniform.) Government lawyer Lawrence Buterman immediately tried to challenge Cue’s assertions that he “learned for the first time about allegations of publisher meetings, phonecalls and dinners” only “after […]

After an afternoon of fairly dry probing of economic regression analyses, the real sparks in Wednesday’s Apple ebook pricing trial came at the very end of the day, in a battle over whether Madeline McIntosh of Random House will be called to testify. Originally the government was going to call McIntosh — as well as Random House ceo Markus Dohle — but they decided not to, and lead defense attorney Orin Snyder says they “never told us.” The government will accept McIntosh’s written testimony without questioning her, which technically leaves no opportunity for the defense to address her unless she […]