Apple Counterpunches the Government's E-Book Lawsuit

Apple, Amazon, DOJ
Courtroom Drama

Most who are familiar with this blog know I have posted many updates on the intrigue RE Apple, Amazon, the Justice Department and the price-fixing debacle. 

Apple, on appeal, accuses the government of siding with “monopoly, rather than competition” when it handed down it's first ruling.

What do you think are Apples chances on this countersuit? Did the DOJ jump the gun? Did they make too many suppositions? Did they have the actual evidence on price manipulation? Did they in fact side with monopolistic practices?

I feel one thing --- whoever wins, the market prices will be set by the buying public. The old supply and demand will be the price driver, not an agenda-ridden retailer. And this is true competition.

Nick Wingfield, The New York Times, has this latest update:

Apple Strikes Back at Government E-Book Lawsuit

A few days ago, Apple filed a formal response to the antitrust lawsuit filed by the Department of Justice in April against it and several book publishers.

The gist of the 31-page filing is the same as Apple’s previous comments on the case: the company denies that it conspired with book publishers to raise e-book prices in a bid to give Apple’s new iPad a boost and to thwart the low e-book pricing of Amazon. But Apple put its objections to the case in somewhat sharper terms in the new filing, accusing the government of siding with “monopoly, rather than competition,” a reference to Amazon, the leader in e-book retailing.

“The government starts from the false premise that an e-books ‘market’ was characterized by ‘robust price competition’ prior to Apple’s entry,” Apple said in its filing. “This ignores a simple and incontrovertible fact: before 2010, there was no real competition, there was only Amazon.”

One noteworthy part of Apple’s response is a denial of one of the more juicy accusations in the government’s suit: namely, that in 2009 Apple “contemplated illegally dividing the digital content world with Amazon, allowing each to ‘own the category’ of its choice — audio/video to Apple and e-books to Amazon.” The government did not say in its filing exactly what evidence it had to prove that accusation.

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