Legal

June 25 was technically the deadline not only for public comments on the Department of Justice’s proposed settlement with Hachette, Harper, and Simon & Schuster, but also for Justice’s publication of those comments along with their replies. But as of Tuesday morning, more than two weeks after the deadline, there was no sign of any of these comments on the DOJ’s website. Even though the government now has one extra week–until August 3–to file its motion for entry of a proposed final judgment on the settlement, the opportunity for Judge Denise Cote to evaluate that voluminous number of comments shrinks […]

Earlier this week when we reported on the June 3, 2013 bench trial date scheduled by Judge Denise Cote for the DOJ’s ebook price fixing suit against Apple, Macmillan, and Penguin, we weren’t sure of the exact schedule she had in mind. It took a while to appear on the docket but we now know the court’s official scheduling order. All parties, including the DOJ, State attorneys general, and the three defendants, must submit an amended Joint Official Report taking into account the June 22 rulings by July 6. They must then contact Judge Kimba Wood about scheduling settlement discussions […]

Hours before Monday’s midnight deadline to submit public comments on the Department of Justice’s settlement with three publishers on ebook price fixing, a group of independent publishers, including Grove/Atlantic, Norton, Perseus, Abrams, Chronicle Books, Chicago Review Press, New Directions, and Workman Publishing, submitted a joint letter to the DOJ objecting to the settlement terms as they “lack an adequate factual basis, are contrary to the public interest and should be rejected” on the grounds that it will “adversely impact competition.” The letter was sent on behalf of the group, banding together as the Independent Book Publishers, by Cravath, Swaine & […]

At a status conference Friday afternoon in federal court Judge Denise Cote set a trial date of June 3, 2013 for the DOJ’s ebook price fixing lawsuit against remaining plaintiffs Apple, Penguin, and Macmillan. And as widely noted already, June 3 also marks the beginning of next year’s Book Expo conference; it’s not clear as to whether Judge Cote chose the date by design. What is clear is that Judge Cote wants the case to move swiftly, since the date she chose is more than three months ahead of the September 30, 2013 date proposed by the DOJ. “Several parties, […]