After the European Commission, who did it in September 2011, also the U.S. Justice Department is now studying the relationship between Apple and five of the most important Publishing Companies: Simon & Schuster Inc, a unit of CBS Corp; Lagardere SCA’s Hachette Book Group; Pearson Plc’s Penguin Group(USA); Macmillan, a unit of Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck GmbH; andHarperCollins Publishers Inc, a unit of News Corp.

Both European and U. S. institutions suspect a breach of antitrust Law: agreements on prices which is a forbidden practice in both legal systems.

The involved companies would have realized these illegal agreements through an “agency model”, signed in 2010, and several vertical agreements, with the specific aim of eliminating from the e-book market rivals as Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Apple, in this very moment, is also facing a class action brought on behalf of e-book customer, for the sudden increasing o prices not supported by a parallel increasing of production costs.

The e-book market is in its moment of bigger growth and the providers are just a few. The protection of competition, in this field, is very important to guarantee the access to the market for new agents and, consequently, the protection of customers’ interests.

Click here to read article on the breach of competition law

Aurora Grieco