Apple Starts E-Book Trial Monday at a Disadvantage
Apple heads to a U.S. federal court Monday to face civil accusations that it conspired with five publishers to drive up the price of electronic books in the weeks leading up to the 2010 introduction of the iPad.
The Justice Department will try to prove during the three-week trial in Manhattan that the publishers seized on Apple’s entrance into the e-book market as an opportunity to shift from low prices set by Amazon.com to higher ones set by the publishers themselves.
“Stripped of the glitz surrounding e-books and Apple, this is an unremarkable and obvious price-fixing case,” Justice Department lawyers said in a May 14 court filing.