Gadgetory

we allege that executives at the highest levels of the companies included in today's lawsuits concern that ebook sellers had reduced prices worked together to eliminate competition among stores selling ebooks ultimately increasing prices for consumers now as a result of this alleged conspiracy we believe that consumers paid millions of dollars more for us some of the most popular titles during regular near quarterly meetings we allege that publishing company executives discuss confidential business and competitive matters including amazon's ebook retailing practices as part of a conspiracy to raise fix and stabilize retail prices in addition we allege that these publishers agree to impose a new model which would enable them to cease pricing authority from bookstores that they entered into agreements to pay apple a thirty percent commission on books sold through its iBook store and that they promised through contracts including Most Favoured Nation provisions that no other book retailer would set a lower price now our investigation even revealed that a CEO allegedly went so far as to encourage an ebook retailer to punish another publisher for not engaging in these illegal activities we allege that CEOs of the publishers the mound the wretched 999 price point one executive said that the goal is less to compete with Amazon as to force it to accept a higher level than 999 and yet another we've always known that unless other publishers follow us there's no chance of success and getting Amazon to change its pricing practices our complaint also quotes apples then CEO steve jobs as saying the customer pays a little more but that's what you want and he's referring to the publishers that's what you want anyway as you can see we allege that these exactly it is knew full well what they were doing that is taking steps together to make sure the prices consumer paid for ebooks were higher I want to stress agreements between companies that are reached unilaterally generally are legal and appropriate however let me be clear when companies get together and conspire to enter into agreements that eliminate price competition it crosses the line this kind of agreement is illegal and anti-competitive that's when the Antitrust Division will take action and that's what we've done today