The Department of Justice opened its e-book price-fixing
case against Apple with a PowerPoint presentation tracking the e-mail messages between the computer giant and senior executives
from Hachette, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Penguin, Random House, and Simon &
Schuster.
The DOJ brought suit against Apple and five publishing
firms in 2012 claiming that the companies agreed to set a higher price for
e-books to stop Amazon from charging $9.99 for best-selling titles. The five
publishing firms named in the original suit have all settled with the
government.
The government accuses Apple of being the hub of a
conspiracy. Part of the presentation tracks phone conversations in an attempt to
prove publishers were deliberately acting in concert with Apple on the agency
deal.
Apple countered by arguing there is no proof of a conspiracy and that Apple “simply was not
willing to start a new business that would lose money” by matching the $9.99
price point. Apple also claims its negotiations with publishers were done
independent of one another and often quite contentious, while its attorney
alleged that it was Amazon that started the conversation on changing the
pricing model before any Apple agreement had been reached.
