Edward Snowden must submit proceeds from his memoir Permanent Record and related speaking engagements to the US government, ruled District Judge Liam O’Grady December 17. Judge O’Grady granted the government’s motion for partial summary judgment, ruling that there was no issue of fact in the lawsuit claiming that Snowden had broken his CIA employment contract by not submitting authored works for pre-publication review. “The contractual language of the Secrecy Agreements is unambiguous,” O’Grady wrote in his decision. “Snowden accepted employment and benefits conditioned upon prepublication review obligations.” Snowden had argued that he had failed to participate because, among other concerns, […]
Legal
Australian Antitrust Commission Has Some Concerns About Cengage McGraw-Hill Merger
The Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC) released a 17-page statement of issues regarding the planned merger of Cengage and McGraw-Hill, the result of a review begun in September. The report outlines two primary “preliminary concerns”: First, that the merger will result in “higher prices, reduced quality or a more limited product range for students in Australia”; and second, that it will “further reduce the already limited number of major publishers with whom higher education authors can publish their works.” Interested parties have until January 20 to submit comments and information, with a final decision due from the commission March […]
People, Etc.
At Trident Media Group, Martha Wydysh and Sulamita Garbuz have both been promoted to associate agents. Nora Rawn joins as foreign rights agent. She was most recently senior editor for Lonely Planet. The late Monika Schoeller, longtime publisher of S. Fischer Verlag and daughter of publisher Georg von Holtzbrinck, was remembered at a service in Germany on Monday. Best Of The New York Times Book Review released its list of 100 Notable Books of 2019. That joins the list of top 100 books from the Washington Post, and the big best books of the year package from the NY Public […]
Briefs
Ailah Ahmed has been promoted to publishing director at Little Brown UK. Picks Way to go, GMA! After announcing their first two Cover to Cover Book Club picks in the middle of the month, the program is on it for December — with an early announcement that Tomi Adeyemi‘s Children of Virtue and Vengeance is their December Book Club selection. Bookselling As Barnes & Noble faces a lawsuit from a veteran former California bookseller alleging age discrimination and claiming that the chain’s real strategy is “we’re no longer hiring book people. going forward, we’re only hiring sales people,'” ceo James […]
Former California Barnes & Noble Bookseller Sues for Age Discrimination, Seeking Class Action Status
Longtime Barnes & Noble employee Barbara Tavres, 59, filed suit against the bookseller in the US District Court in Northern California, seeking class action status and alleging age discrimination. After working for B&N in community relations since 2006, most recently at a bookstore in Emeryville, CA — during a career of positive performance reviews that included winning their Above & Beyond award in 2016 — Tavres was told she was being terminated on September 9. She charges that earlier that same day, her district manager Phil Alexander and “other management-level Barnes & Noble employees had participated in a recurring weekly […]
Anonymous Whistleblower Squeals to Congress — On Amazon Antitrust Allegations
The House Judiciary Committee’s rambling inquiry into Amazon’s business practices may have flushed out a tattle-tale merchant of scale articulating allegations of a valid antitrust accusation against the company. Or at least that is Bloomberg’s read of the 62-document: “It accuses Amazon of ‘tying’ its marketplace and logistics services together, an antitrust violation in which a company uses dominance in one market to give itself an advantage in another market where it’s less established.” Importantly, the merchant alleges that Amazon’s own fulfillment services are more expensive than competitors’ — and slower — which forces sellers to raise prices, harming consumers. […]