Apple has been on a hot seat with the U.S law with the so-called 'tax manipulation' and now comes another 'e-book price manipulation'.
The Manhattan federal court invited representatives from Apple to attend the hearing tomorrow, May 3, to respond to the allegations that the company has conspired with five major e-book publishers to raise the price of e-books.
In April 2012, a lawsuit was filed against Apple and the publishers but since the publishers paid $164 million to benefit the consumers and offer discounts on their sites, Apple is left to attend the trial alone. The U.S government clarified that they are not pursuing Apple to get money as well but rather to remind the company to avoid performing such things.
The five e-book publishers that allegedly conspired with Apple were Pearson Plc's Penguin Group, News Corp's HarperCollins Publishers Inc, CBS Corp's Simon & Schuster Inc, Hachette Book Group Inc and MacMillan.
U.S. District Judge Denise Cote is assigned to hear the case and told in an interview with Reuters that they have strong evidences against the iPad developer. "I believe that the government will be able to show at trial direct evidence that Apple knowingly participated in and facilitated a conspiracy to raise prices of e-books."
So what does Apple CEO Tim Cook has to say now? In an interview with All Things Digital, Cook said "not going to sign something that says we did something we didn't do."
The said conspiracy began in 2009 when Amazon.com, the largest supplier of e-book with a market share of 90 percent back then, raised the price to $9.99 to encourage buyers to purchase from their new brand Kindle. Based on the evidences of the Justice Department, Apple arranged a meeting with the rest of the publishers to increase their prices as well-with 30 percent of it goes to Apple.
