E-BOOKs Apple antitrust suit set

Associated Press

NEW YORK

In a civil case where the words of Steve Jobs play prominently, the government and Apple Inc. are set to square off over allegations that Apple Inc. conspired with the country’s largest book publishers to make consumers pay more for electronic books.

U.S. District Judge Denise Cote is scheduled to begin hearing the price-fixing case today in federal court in Manhattan.

The trial stems from an antitrust lawsuit brought last year by the Justice Department, which accused Apple of helping hatch the scheme at a meeting with publishers in 2009 as it was preparing to launch the iPad. Its purpose was to force Seattle-based Amazon.com — the marketer of Kindle e-book readers — to raise the $9.99 price it had set for the most popular e-book titles because that was substantially below their hardcover prices, the government says.

The Justice Department accuses the conspirators of agreeing that instead of selling books to retailers and letting them decide what price to charge readers, the publishers would convert the retailers into “agents” who were restricted from lowering the publisher-set retail price.