[AnemicOak]

In an appeal filing with the Second Circuit, Apple attorneys pressed their argument that Judge Denise Cote blew it when she found Apple liable for its role in an alleged conspiracy to fix e-book prices, and pleaded for a reversal.

Calling the DoJ’s e-book price-fixing case an “incoherent attack on supposed collusion,” Apple stressed the unprecedented nature of Cote's 2013 decision.

“Never before has a court found a company liable under the antitrust laws for entry into a market dominated by a single company, through admittedly vertical and lawful distribution agreements, to launch an enterprise that the court admitted benefited consumers and competition, where the company did not desire higher prices and the agreements did not specify prices to be charged, and which resulted in more competition, lower market prices, and increased market output,” Apple attorneys argued. “Plaintiffs do not cite a single analogous case, and there is none. The district court’s decision finding Apple per se liable under the antitrust laws was therefore reversible error.”

By now the Second Circuit must be getting familiar with the price-fixing case: Apple has already lost two minor appeals related to the case, and late last month, two publishers filed an appeal with the Second Circuit arguing that Judge Denise Cote’s 2013 final order against Apple illegally amended their e-book price-fixing settlements from 2012, and made a timely return to a straight “no-discount” agency model all but impossible.

http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/b...-reversal.html