As MMW has previously reported, the U.S. Department of Justice filed suit against Apple and five of the largest publishing houses in the world this week (Hachette, Harper Collins, Simon & Shuster, Macmillan, and The Penguin Publishing Co. Ltd) alleging that this group engaged in unfair business practices relating to ebook pricing.
Although almost any company or organization would be terrified at the prospect of going toe-to-toe with the federal government, Apple isn’t one of them. In fact, the legal experts who have weighed in on the matter believe that Apple will likely handily defeat the DOJ.
Dominick Armentano, professor emeritus of economics at the University of Hartford, doesn’t believe Apple can lose. Neither does Geoffrey Manne, who teaches antitrust law at the Lewis and Clark Law School in Oregon.
“It’s a harder case against Apple than the publishers,” Manne asserts.
“I’m not saying that Apple can smile and walk away from this,” Joseph Bauer, a professor of law at the University of Notre Dame, adds. “It’s just that the government will have to show that Apple had some kind of involvement in the original arrangement.”
So while the publishers involved may have their hands full with the DOJ, Apple it seems has very little, if anything, to truly worry about.
