Apple Wants A Trial To Defend Itself Against E-book Price Fixing Allegations

Apple is being accused of colluding with book publishers in order to raise prices for digital books, as a result of which the U.S. Department of Justice filed an antitrust lawsuit against the company last week. Yesterday, another class-action lawsuit was filed in Canada regarding the same issue and today, Apple has issued a statement through its lawyer that the company wants to go to trial to defend itself against these price fixing allegations. Apple lawyer Daniel Floyd told U.S. District Judge Denise Cote “we believe that this is not an appropriate case against us and we would like to validate that.”

Detailing via Reuters:

The government said the price-fixing took place in early 2010 as Apple was introducing its iPad. E-book prices went up an average of $2 to $3 in a three-day period in early 2010, according to the complaint.

The European Commission is also probing Apple and publishers in a similar antitrust probe. It said on Wednesday that it had received settlement proposals from Apple and four publishers – Simon & Schuster, Harper Collins, Hachette Livre and Macmillan’s parent.

The judge has scheduled the next hearing for June 22.