The European Union’s antitrust investigation into ebook pricing has long been more opaque than the US case, but a single-source story from Reuters offers a vague update to a previous report of an impending settlement from early July. According to this story, Apple, along with S&S, Macmillan, Hachette, and HarperCollins, “will allow retailers such as Amazon to sell e-books at a discount for two years in a bid to end an EU antitrust investigation and stave off possible fines.” In other words, the EU seems to want nothing more or less than the DOJ and state attorneys general offered and […]
Legal
Pentagon Says Former SEAL Owen Is In “Material Breach” and May Sue
The Pentagon has threatened to take action against former Navy SEAL Mark Owen–and potentially everyone involved in the publication process–for publishing without gaining the required clearances from the government ahead of time. Defense Department general counsel Jeh Johnson said in a letter obtained by Reuters: “I write to formally advise you of your material breach and violation of your agreements, and to inform you that the department is considering pursuing against you, and all those acting in concert with you, all remedies legally available to us in light of this situation.” Johnson adds that “further public dissemination of your book […]
Three Settling Publishers Agree to Pay Consumers $69 Million, Plus $7.5 Million to States for Legal Costs
A little later than planned, attorneys general from 49 states (all but Minnesota), five territories and the District of Columbia have filed with Judge Denise Cote’s court a proposed settlment of their ebook price-fixing action with Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins and Simon & Schuster. The publishers have agreed to pay approximately $69 million in consumer restitution, and “about $7.5 million to the states for legal fees and other costs.” (When the agreement to settle was announced in April, the AGs said they expected the publishers would pay about $52 million, but that was before Simon & Schuster had agreed to […]
Judge Cote Accepts Authors Guilds’ Brief; Will Accept A Kohn Filing of 5 Pages Only
In a brief ruling on Tuesday, Judge Denise Cote accepted the amicus curiae brief submitted by the Authors Guild, and agreed to do the same for businessman and attorney Bob Kohn, as long as he resubmits his brief by next Tuesday, September 4 and turns his dozens of pages into 5 pages or less, just as everone else was ordered to do. “Kohn had a full opportunity to express his opinion on the proposed FInal Judgment during the public comment period and took full advantage of this opportunity. Any additional remarks need only address new arguments presented in the Government’s […]
DOJ Response Again Stresses “Unmistakable Consumer Harm” From Agency Model Pricing
Filing late in the day on Wednesday evening, the Department of Justice responded to the latest wave of objections to the proposed ebook pricing settlement with the same disdain they have brought to any dissenting views through the Tunney Act process. Rather than addressing head-on the contention that the government has defined the relevant market too narrowly in looking at ebooks as things unto themselves (separate from ebook readers, and other elements of the book publishing market), the government answered by saying that every opponent of an antitrust action believes they are special. “While ebooks are a relatively new arrival […]
Macmillan Agrees with Penguin On Lack of Government Analysis; Says “The size of Amazon’s market share is at the center”
The third of the three litigating defendants to file, Macmillan advances one argument similar to Penguin’s: That the government has not provided “a single economic study or analysis showing why its mandated pricing scheme is necessary to undo the effects of the alleged collusion, or why it is in ‘the public interest.” More broadly, “Other than to explain the government’s intention in requiring such substantial limitations on price restrictions, the CIS offers no precedential or evidentiary support for why those limitations would be in the public interest, no analysis of the market effect of such a prohibition and no analysis […]