The Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC) released a 17-page statement of issues regarding the planned merger of Cengage and McGraw-Hill, the result of a review begun in September. The report outlines two primary “preliminary concerns”: First, that the merger will result in “higher prices, reduced quality or a more limited product range for students…
DOJ
Audible Makes Publishers an Offer on Captions, and More Legal Updates
Judge Valerie Caproni has been in no hurry to rule on publishers’ request for a temporary injunction blocking the release of Audible Captions, waiting for the parties to try and work out a business arrangement — and now Audible’s lawyer counsel has asked the court to “suspend its consideration of the pending motions for a…
Former Intelligence Agency Employees Sue Over Prepublication Review
Five former employees of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the Department of Defense, have sued their former employers to contest the government’s prepublication approval requirements. Former intelligence employees are required to submit manuscripts for review and obtain government approval before they can publish, which the plaintiffs call…
PEN America and the Authors Guild Stand Against Quad/LSC Merger
Monopoly watchdog group the Open Markets Institute has filed a brief, signed jointly by PEN America and the Authors Guild, encouraging the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division “to block the merger between the two sole competitors in the long-run magazine and book printing markets,” Quad and LSC Communications. In October, Quad (formerly Quad Graphics) announced…
The Last Gasp: Apple Agrees To Settle Shareholder eBook Complaint
The long-running saga of the Department of Justice vs. Apple over antitrust issues with ebook pricing had one last gasp. Two years after Apple paid out more than $450 million in settlement credits in the original case (which was settled two years prior, in 2014), the company has settled a subsequent derivative shareholder complaint, originally…
Harper Canada Finally Settles eBook Pricing Case
HarperCollins has reached a consent agreement with Canada’s Competition Bureau related to the introduction of agency ebook pricing there, a year after the other parties had settled. Hachette, Macmillan, Simon & Schuster and Apple all entered into consent agreements in January 2017, but Harper had resisted. They said, in part, “HarperCollins Canada is confident in its…