Without formally requesting permission from the court, the Department of Justice has gone ahead and helped themselves to a response to friend of the court briefs from the Authors Guild and Bob Kohn. Needless to say, they find those briefs without merit. To the Guild they say that “just as fear of competition is not a defense to price fixing, it also has no place in determining whether a government consent decree is in the ‘public interest'” (thereby not addressing the thing that the Guild “fears”/warns against). To Kohn they reply his “assertion that ‘if the government’s conclusions are not […]
Legal
Ducksworth Sues Penguin For Age Discrimination
Marilyn Ducksworth left Penguin last Friday after 28 years with the company, and in a complaint she says was filed on Wednesday afternoon in New York State Supreme Court charges the publisher with age discrimination. Ducksworth, who is 56, says she left “as a result of Penguin’s deliberate, unrelenting undermining of [her] status.” Penguin spokesperson Erica Glass said, “If a complaint is filed, the true facts will be presented to the court in due course. We can state categorically that it was Marilyn Ducksworth’s decision to resign and that PGI does not condone, nor was there, any age discrimination or […]
BN College Settlement Approved
As expected, Delaware Chancery Judge Leo Strine approved the settlement of the lawsuit brought by Barnes & Noble shareholders over the deal to purchase BN College from the Riggios. Judge Strine agreed in part with BN’s request to reduce the share of the proceeds going to the lawyers–originally set at $11 million of the $29 million settlement–though he reduced the award to $7 million rather than halving it as BN asked. The value of the remaining $22 million in settlement funds will be garnered by the bookseller’s own treasury, worth about 37 cents a share. (There is no award to […]
Kohn’s Final, Comic, Reply
Required by Judge Denise Cote to get his amicus brief down to 5 pages or less (from a proposed 25 pages or more), Bob Kohn has gone more than one step further and submitted his arguments as short “graphic novel” instead. The full panels follow. (Click to expand.) Perhaps the DOJ will reply via Pinterest:
BN College Shareholder Suit Settlement Goes Before Judge
This Tuesday a Delaware Court of Chancery holds a hearing on the proposed settlement of shareholders’ suits against Barnes & Noble over the handling of the purchase of BN College. The settlement calls for Len Riggio to forgo $22.75 million of the principal on a $150 million note that the company still owes him for the transaction, and he will sacrifice $6.3 million of the way-above-market interest that BN is paying on the note. (While borrowing costs are near record lows, the company is paying 10 percent interest.) BN has objected to the proposal that the attorneys get $11 million of […]
State eBook Settlement Will Actually Cost $78.9 Million
Complete documents for the proposed settlement between the states and Hachette, Harper and Simon & Schuster still have not appeared in the US Federal Court’s electronic docket, but the Connecticut Attorney General’s office provided us with some of the key filings. The total amount to be paid out by the publishers is actually $78.9 million. (In addition to the $69 million in consumer compensation, they are paying the states $7.625 million in legal fees–presumably split equally among the three since it isn’t specified–but also another $2.25 million not previously announced for “costs associated with administering the settlements.” The consumer compensation […]