The statement from the Justice Department and other plaintiffs in the e-books case said that the monitor’s contention that Apple had resisted his inquiries made the recomendation a hard one. The Justice Department said that it’s largely satisfied with Apple’s response of reforms and compliance with the antitrust laws, even though it believes the Cupertino-based company had internal fights with the monitor assigned to them – Michael Bromwich – to ensure the sale of e-books went as the court appointed. “In arriving at our conclusion not to recommend an extension of the Monitor’s term, we ultimately give greater weight to the Monitor’s assessment that Apple has put in place a meaningful antitrust compliance program than to the hard path it took to achieve this result”, the government said.
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Despite the Justice Department claiming that Apple “never embraced a cooperative working relationship with the monitor”, Apple has nonetheless performed all of its expected duties over the past couple of years in terms of compliance. In June, a divided U.S. appeals court in New York upheld Cote’s finding, rejecting Apple’s argument that it had engaged in pro-competitive behavior. The relationship between Apple and Bromwich was contentious from the start, with Apple claiming the monitor asked prematurely to interview Apple directors and submitted excessive bills.
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Despite the two years of in-fighting, Bromwich did say that Apple has now done what the court had ordered it to do. Though he has documented his concerns about transparency at the company, he said recently that the program was “substantially stronger than it was when the monitorship began”. Cote found Apple schemed with five book publishers from 2009 to 2010 to raise ebook prices in an effort to slow competitors such as Amazon.com. He was tasked with assessing their policies and determining whether their training on antitrust rules was sufficient. It also faces state-level probes.
