Quote:
Originally Posted by DuckieTigger
What I don't get - they basically admitted of having no chance in court and that is why they settled. So why are they (Hachette) trying to draw attention to them by still wanting to enforce agency pricing?
How long is the court order still good for everybody to discount?
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The court order doesn't prohibit agency pricing. Each publisher can establish agency pricing on its own; they are just prohibited from doing it jointly. Even if they all end up going to agency pricing, as long as they do so without consulting with each other, they can do so.
The discounting order is good until the contracts with Amazon expire. I believe that the last contract will expire in October, but I may be wrong about that.
BTW, it is worth noting that as the contracts expire, each publisher can insist on agency pricing, which means that Amazon could end up facing the 5 BPH without contracts and all 5 demanding agency pricing. In that event, Amazon will be in a very weak position.
As long as none of the publishers discuss agency pricing with any other publisher, there will be little that Amazon -- or the Department of Justice -- can do, especially as both Judge Cote and the DOJ are already on record saying that agency pricing is OK.
The news media will keep each of the publishers informed as to what the other publishers are doing, so there will be no need for any collusion.