DOJ

State and consumer class action attorneys filed notice last week that they have finalized their settlement with Macmillan, first announced in January. The publisher will not only pay out $20 million to settle the suits, as planned, but will also pay $3 million to cover litigation and “investigation” costs; $2.475 million for plaintiff’s attorney fees; and $1,000 for each of the named class action plaintiffs as a “service award”, for a total of $26.25 million. Macmillan is also formally excluded from the June 3 trial, which Judge Cote ruled separately that Penguin must participate in, despite the publisher asking for […]

In keeping with the schedule proposed at the beginning of the year, the DOJ filed a motion on April 18 moving for a final judgment on their settlement with Penguin from December. They asked Judge Cote to rule “without further hearing if the Court determines that entry is in the public interest” especially since in the DOJ’s view, a delay in doing so will also delay the implementation of ebook discounting: “There is no just reason to delay the availability of these benefits for consumers.” Answering papers, if any, must be filed by May 7, in accordance with the proposed […]

The Department of Justice filed its required report to the court on Tunney Act comments on the proposed ebook pricing settlement with Penguin–which generated a total of 3 comments. Not unexpectedly, they disagree with Bob Kohn’s latest objections: “Mr. Kohn is not correct that firms may, as a matter of law, conspire to undo what they regard to be anticompetitive conduct. As the United States stated its Original Response to Comments, even if there were evidence to substantiate claims of monopolization or predatory pricing by Amazon, it would not have been acceptable for the Publisher Defendants to conspire with Apple […]

Royalty Share ceo and attorney Bob Kohn is taking a new approach to asking the court to mitigate the effects of the ebook pricing settlements with the Department of Justice. He recently submitted Tunney Act comments on the new settlement pending with Penguin. This time, rather than asking the court to reject the settlement entirely, he suggests that they modify its provisions. Kohn asks that the restrictions on Penguin’s use of the agency model be removed. If the court agrees, he will seek the same modification for both the pending Macmillan settlement and the already approved settlements with Hachette, Harper […]

Judge Cote ruled in a Wednesday morning teleconference hearing that Apple ceo Tim Cook must testify as part of the DOJ’s lawsuit against Apple in June. Reuters reported that Judge Cote cited the death of Steve Jobs as a key reason in ordering Cook’s deposition, which will last for a minimum of four hours. “Because of that loss, I think the government is entitled to take testimony from high-level executives within Apple about topics relevant to the government case,” she said. Apple had tried to insulate Cook from the trial, saying he was not named in the original antitrust complaint […]