In this ruling the court sided with the Justice Department that the price-fixing conspiracy violated federal antitrust law and that the judge in the 2013 case acted properly when she issued an injunction to prevent the price-fixing from recurring.
In the original case, the Justice Department’s charges stemmed from an agreement between Apple and the publishers to raise the prices for e-books above the prices charged by Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN). The judge in that case wrote:
The [Justice Department and several state attorneys general] have shown that the publisher defendants conspired with each other to eliminate retail price competition in order to raise e-book prices, and that Apple played a central role in facilitating and executing that conspiracy. Without Apple’s orchestration of this conspiracy, it would not have succeeded as it did in the Spring of 2010.
In the ruling issued Tuesday, Reuters cited the appellate judge who wrote for the two-to-one majority:
… Circuit Judge Debra Ann Livingston said that by organizing the conspiracy, “Apple found an easy path to opening its iBookstore,” while ensuring that marketwide prices rose to a level that Apple and the publishers wanted.
Tuesday’s decision upholds Apple’s civil liability in the suite and the terms of the injunction that limited the kind of agreements it could make with publishers. The company also will have to pay $450 million as part of a settlement with 33 state attorneys general and lawyers who took part in class action lawsuits.
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