News tagged ‘conspiracy’

On Friday, another claim was filed over Apple for conspiring with publishes to fix E-Book prices. This time Cupertino company is believed to owe American E-Book customers at least $280 million in damages.  Steve Berman, who is the attorney representing the consumers, states that due to the conspiracy E-Books prices rose 18.1 percent, which lead to $280 million in damages.

State attorneys general and consumers who sued the world’s most valuable technology company over its e-book pricing are seeking $280 million in damages and want that amount tripled, a lawyer for them said in a filing yesterday with the federal judge in Manhattan who presided over the U.S. case against Apple.

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On the 20^th June US District Judge Denise Cote ruled that Apple conspired to raise the retail prices of e-books, says Reuters report. The publishers Macmillan and Penguin, names co-defendants, set the price of each book and gave the seller a 30% cut instead of using traditional wholesale models.

According to Eddy Cue, Apple's SVP of Internet Software and Services, the prices for iBookstore have grown due to inflation. The statement does not help Apple much, especially when Mr. Cue is considered the head of the conspiracy.

Yesterday the iPad had been pulled from sale at online retailers Amazon China and Suning.com. The Wall Street Journal now reports that the iPad had been removed at Apple's request rather than as a result of actions associated with the trademark dispute, but Apple's reasons for the request were unknown. However, Apple may request that Amazon China remove the iPad from sale, simply due to Amazon China not being an officially authorized retailer.

The Cupertino, Calif., consumer electronics giant asked Amazon in China to stop selling iPads because it is not an authorized reseller, according to people familiar with the matter. Amazon has since removed iPads offered by other resellers on its Chinese website as well.

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A class-action lawsuit has been filed against Apple and 5 of the 6 major book publishers: Hachette, HarperCollins, MacMillan, Penguin, and Simon & Shuster. The lawsuit claims that they "colluded to increase prices for popular e-book titles to boost profits and force e-book rival Amazon to abandon its pro-consumer discount pricing."

From the lawsuit:

In November 2007, Amazon revolutionized the book publishing industry by releasing the Kindle, a handheld digital reader for electronic books or “eBooks.” A major economic advantage to eBook technology is its potential to massively reduce distribution costs historically associated with brick-and-mortar publishing. But publishers quickly realized that if market forces were allowed to prevail too quickly, these efficiency enhancing characteristics would rapidly lead to lower consumer prices, improved consumer welfare, and threaten the current business model and available surplus (profit margins). So, faced with disruptive eBook technology that threatened their inefficient and antiquated business model, several major book publishers, working with Apple Inc. (“Apple”), decided free market competition should not be allowed to work – together they coordinated their activities to fight back in an effort to restrain trade and retard innovation. The largest book publishers and Apple were successful.

This lawsuit alleges that as a "direct result of this anticompetitive conduct as intended by the conspiracy, the price of eBooks has soared" and "bring claims under federal and state antitrust laws to enjoin the illegal conduct and to obtain damages."