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Apple Settling Price-Fixing Accusations on European E-Book Sales
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Apple and four book publishers are set to settle an anti-trust investigation after they agreed to drop requirements that retailers do not price e-books lower than prices available on the iTunes platform.
Europe's anti-trust watchdog has been investigating the deals which it says may hamper competition in the market. Deals signed with Apple by the book companies secured Apple a 30% share of revenues, but also included a clause blocking the publishers from doing deals with other distributors, such as Amazon at a lower retail price.
Apple requires publishers to follow the "agency model", where the publishers set the retail price rather than leaving it to the retailers to decide. As such, it can try to force publishers to set minimum prices across all their retail channels.
Citing a person familiar with the matter, Reuters reported that the five companies have agreed to a two-year agreement to drop the controversial price-fixing clause.
The European Commission is now checking the wording of the compromise deal with other publishers and resellers.
The EU is also currently investigating whether setting different tax rates within Europe on ebook sales distorts the market. Some larger companies, most famously, Amazon have based their European sales operations in low-tax countries such as Luxembourg and can use the lower sales tax to undercut companies based in other European countries.
The company recently settled a similar investigation in the USA, where the company was accused of collusion in setting ebook prices.
On the web: Reuters
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