Brussels, 13/12/2012 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday 13 December, the European Commission announced that it is ending its investigation into Apple and four international publishers for price-fixing for electronic books, because the companies in question have promised to change their agreements with book retailers.
In December 2011, the Commission opened an investigation into Apple (inventor of the iPad) and publishing companies Simon & Schuster (CBS Corp, US), Harper Collins (News Corp, US), Hachette Livre (Lagardère Publishing, France) and Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck (owner of MacMillan, Germany) to discover whether they had signed illegal price-fixing deals to eliminate competition.
EU Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia said at a press conference that the Commission was happy with the commitments made by Apple and the publishers on 19 September, which would restore normal competition conditions on the rapidly expanding e-book market to the benefit of clients and readers of e-books.
The Commission launched the investigation because it feared that the agency contracts between the publishers and retailers were potentially damaging to customers.
The publishers and Apple agreed to end their current agency contracts and ensure that any further agency contracts leave retailers free to set their own prices for e-books for two years.
In April, Hachette Livre, Simon & Schuster and Harper Collins made an out-of-court settlement with the US government to end an investigation into digital book prices, agreeing to pay $69 million in damages to consumers and change their practices to allow retailers to cut e-book prices. The Commission's decision does not cover Penguin, which decided not to make any commitments, and the Commission is currently in productive talks with Penguin on commitments to end the investigation opened against it. (LC/transl.fl)