Apple on Wednesday rose to challenge the U.S. Department ofJustice's lawsuit over alleged ebook price fixing, asking for atrial at the first hearing in Manhattan federal court since theDoJ's filing last week. A lawyer for Apple said that the Cupertino, Calif., company wantsto defend itself in court against allegations that it colluded with five major bookpublishers to fix the price of ebooks provided through theiBookstore, reports Reuters . Standing by Apple in its pursuit of a separate trial are publishinghouses Macmillan, a unit of Verlagsgruppe Georg von HoltzbrinckGmbH, and Penguin Group, which is owned by Pearson. "Our basic view is that we would like the case to be decided on themerits," said Apple lawyer Daniel Floyd to U.S. District JudgeDenise Cote. "We believe that this is not an appropriate caseagainst us and we would like to validate that." The three remaining publishers that decided not to fight theaccusations, News Corp's HarperCollins Publishers Inc, CBS Corp'sSimon & Schuster Inc and Lagardere SCA subsidiary Hachette BookGroup, settled out of court. Fifteen states and the Commonwealth ofPuerto Rico were reportedly in settlement talks with the threepublishers. Shepard Goldfein, a lawyer for HarperCollins, told the court thatif all 50 states were to settle, it could impact a class actionsuit from consumers. The company is apparently hedging its bets andattempting to avoid any additional fallout from the multiplelawsuits. "There could be something left of the class, or nothing left of theclass," Goldfein said. With the settlement, Apple can no longer practice its "most favorednations" policy that has allowed publishers to name the price ofebooks in return for not selling the products to other resellerslike Amazon. The internet sales giant will likely revert back toits original wholesale model, which allows it to set the prices ofebooks at below-cost prices to lure customers. Hachette and HarperCollins agreed to pay $51 million inrestitutions to a group of U.S. states for consumers who boughtebooks under Apple's scrutinized sales model. Simon and Schuster is also looking to enter thesettlement a company lawyer said. It is unclear what plans thestates have for settlement the money. The allegations of price fixing are also being studied by theEuropean Commission, and the government body announced that it hadreceived settlement proposals from Apple, Simon & Schuster, HarperCollins, Hachette Livre and Macmillan. I am an expert from food-additivesingredients.com, while we provides the quality product, such as China Flavor Additives , China Food Additives Antioxidants, Food Additives Antioxidants,and more.
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