Legal

A variety of legal moves are underway to compel depositions and other information from Amazon in the ebook pricing cases. Attorneys for Apple have complained to the court about efforts by Amazon last Friday, September 14, “to quash a non-party subpoena served on it by defendants.” In what they call “a highly confidential submission, defendants requested permission from Judge Cote, also on Friday, to move to compel Amazon’s compliance with that same subpoena.” The move became public with the filing of a request for the Washington District Court to transfer Amazon’s request to Judge Denise Cote, who is overseeing the […]

HarperCollins, Hachette, Macmillan and Simon & Schuster have joined with Apple in offering to settle with the European Commission over the introduction of agency ebook pricing in Europe, “with a view to seeking an early resolution of the case.” The Commission is “still investigating Pearson’s conduct” and its “compatibility” with EU regulations. The proposed settlement closely mirrors conditions that three of those publishers have already agreed to in the US. As in the US, Apple’s existing agency agreements with the Settlers as well as Penguin will be terminated and the most favored nations clause will be barred, and the Settlers’ […]

The three settling publishers filed a joint motion with Judge Denise Cote opposing Bob Kohn’s request for standing to appeal the ebook pricing settlement. The Settlers say in their filing they “have real interests in the entry of the final judgment and will incur increased costs as the litigation process is drawn out by Mr. Kohn’s ongoing attempts to participate in this litigation.” They call say “Kohn’s motion is only a transparent effort to disrupt settlement” and assert that he wishes “to step into the shoes of the settling publishers in derrogation of their clear wish.” In a separate filing, the […]

Penguin asked for–and now has received–permission to shar ein the open court docket the previously “confidential” pre-agency pricing data they referred to in opposing the approval of the federal settlement. Even now that the settlement has been finalized, “Penguin believes it is in the public interest to make evidence like this public,” they told Judge Cote. “Exhibit A, compiled using historical pricing information from Amazon, shows that (1) the average Amazon price, on a title by title basis, for the majority of Penguin new release eBook titles was higher than $9.99 prior to the agency model.” The data comprises the […]

Sometimes the judge holds all the cards that matter. Bob Kohn’s attempt to obtain an emergency stay of the enactment of the Department of Justice’s ebook pricing settlement pending appeal before all three Apple contracts were voided and the landscape reset itself appears to have been stymied by Judge Denise Cote, who has effectively run out the clock on Kohn by inaction. While Judge Cote denied Kohn’s request for a stay earlier this week, she didn’t rule one way or the other on whether to grant him standing to appeal the ruling in the first place, stretching that process out […]