Apple calls Dept. of Justice settlement proposal unlawful

Apple is making it known that it will not accept the ebook settlement terms proposed by the Department of Justice, says a report in Paid Content. Under the DOJ's proposal, Apple would have to sever its current contracts and renegotiate new ones with three book publishers - HarperCollins, Hachette and Simon & Schuster. Apple says that this outcome is "fundamentally unfair, unlawful, and unprecedented" and denies the company its right to a fair trial.

This settlement is the result of an investigation into Apple's agency model pricing agreement with book publishers. In this model, publishers are allowed to set ebook prices in the iBookstore and cannot sell the electronic books at a lower price through another retailer. This hurt Amazon, which was paying publishers the wholesale cost, but selling the books to customers at extremely low prices, often at a loss.

Rather than accept the settlement, Apple asked the court to defer judgement on the settlement until the case made its way through the court. The trial is expected to begin in June 2013.

[Via Apple Insider]