Apple gripes about antitrust monitoring

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by rkomar

4 lawyers charging $100 each -> median = $100, mean = $100
3 lawyers charging $100 each and 1 charging $1000 -> median = $100, mean = $325

You only need one outlier to greatly affect the mean, but not the median.

Yes, and that means that using the median instead of the mean can cover for one really high priced lawyer, not a bunch.

Originally Posted by pwalker8

Looks like the national press is picking this up.

Headline - Apple's Star Chamber - An abusive judge and her prsecutor friend besiege the tech maker.

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/...pinion_LEADTop

Obviously the "any stick to beat Apple" crowd in this thread will dismiss such views since it doesn't fit their world view, but there really is, or should be a limit on what an individual judge can do. It will be interesting to watch the appeal process. Apparently, Cote is starting to back pedal a bit on her decree.

They are not exactly impartial in regards to this case:

Judge Cote foisted Mr. Bromwich on Apple over its objections, to punish the company for what she ruled was price-fixing when the late Jobs tried to alter the payment structure of e-books in December 2009 and January 2010. His alleged publishing co-conspirators include HarperCollins, which like the Journal is owned by News Corp.

[fjtorres]

Much like Forbes and the NYT, the WSJ hosts a lot of online opinion pieces that would not pass muster at any journalism school, not even one run by Baghdad Bob.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

How can anyone possibly take that WSJ opinion piece seriously when it contains statements like that?

Come on, give us the full quote, it's much worse:

In July, Judge Cote of the New York federal district court convicted the iPad of being a conspiracy to increase digital book prices, though the tablet's 2010 introduction increased competition and consumer choice and, er, lowered digital book prices.

Apparently, now that Apple entered the market, we have lower prices than ever before!

All hail Apple, the Gods of Low Pricing!!

[eschwartz]

Just in case I wasn't clear enough yet, let me repeat:

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

Just in case I wasn't clear enough yet, let me repeat:

Careful.
Laughter-induced injuries lie that way.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Careful.
Laughter-induced injuries lie that way.

Sorry, but that's impossible.

"A laughter a day keeps the doctor away."

[pwalker8]

Yep, can't really expect serious discussion here, the "any stick to beat Apple with" crowd is unwilling to do anything than mock and throw out ad homiem attacks (for those unfamilar with the term, it's a rhetorical device which involves attacking the person rather than addressing the matter at hand. The person in this case is Apple).

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

(for those unfamilar with the term, it's a rhetorical device which involves attacking the person rather than addressing the matter at hand. The person in this case is Apple).

Wrong. The person in this case is the idiot who wrote the shoddy, fact-less opinion piece in the WSJ. I wouldn't have cared who/what it was written about--that thing was silly bad.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by jgaiser

I'm not a "any stick to beat Apple" commenter. I own both an iPad and and iPhone and like them both.

But, exactly how should a corporation who have been found guilty of price-fixing be treated?

It seems reasonable to me that their day-to-day activities be monitored. I'm sorry that they don't like the fact that they have to pay for that monitoring and they don't like the fact that the monitor is asking for things they don't like, but hey... They could have settled like the rest of the defendants. They didn't and now they pay the price for their gamble.

How do *you* think they should be treated?

Well, for one thing, I would like to see the case evolve beyond one judge's opinion sans jury.

There is a lot more to this story than some are willing to admit. Here is a story from CNN

http://features.blogs.fortune.cnn.co.../?iid=HP_River

Apparently appointing a monitor at all in a case like this is a very unusual act, as is appointing a monitor who has the close personal ties that this person seems to have with Judge Cote. It sure seems a lot like Bromwich is trying to rack up as many hours as he can before the appeal hearings come to pass.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

Well, for one thing, I would like to see the case evolve beyond one judge's opinion sans jury.

There is a lot more to this story than some are willing to admit. Here is a story from CNN

http://features.blogs.fortune.cnn.co.../?iid=HP_River

Apparently appointing a monitor at all in a case like this is a very unusual act, as is appointing a monitor who has the close personal ties that this person seems to have with Judge Cote. It sure seems a lot like Bromwich is trying to rack up as many hours as he can before the appeal hearings come to pass.

It's a very unusual case, perhaps none like it so I think you are simply wrong about the monitor appointment being unusual.

P.S. according to the url its a blog post....

According to the article the lawyer fees are not out of line so that's just smoke anyway.

As I said in my initial post, more whining from Apple, we'll just have to wait and see what happens.

The piece actually amounts to nothing we don't already know, speculation on the part of the writer and a very long rehash of everything that has gone before......move along...nothing to see here....

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by kennyc

It's a very unusual case, perhaps none like it so I think you are simply wrong about it being unusual.

P.S. according to the url its a blog post....

According to the article the lawyer fees are not out of line so that's just smoke anyway.

As I said in my initial post, more whining from Apple, we'll just have to wait and see what happens.

You are saying that since it's a unique case, that I'm wrong about it being unusual? That doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. BTW - the article calls it unusual.

[jgaiser]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

You are saying that since it's a unique case, that I'm wrong about it being unusual? That doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. BTW - the article calls it unusual.

Sigh... The *case* is unusual. If it is *unusual* how can the monitor be unusual? There is not much to compare it to.

[pwalker8]

To follow up a bit about, my issue isn't that Apple is getting whacked, I don't buy ebooks from Apple, so I really don't have a concern there. My issue is that this is clearly a case of what I consider a major issue in the US these days, prosecutor overreach. Basically, there is an ongoing issue where prosecutors will come up with what is referred to as a novel legal theory, find a sympathetic judge and go after a company hammer and tongs to either extract a lot of money (the reason many of the states are jumping on the bandwagon) or to notch up a big press win to further their political ambitions.

They get away with it because they tend to go after unpopular companies and most companies would rather pay the extortion rather than risk being run out of business. I think that we see from this thread, that there are always people willing to assume that a big company deserves to be beaten, no matter the facts in the specific case. While some may sneer and declare Apples whatever happens to them, the bottom line is that if you have that attitude, you give up your right to complain when the same thing happens to Amazon, or Google, or whatever company you like gets picked as the ATM to be raided.

Prosecutors do it because currently, there is no downside. Even if they lose, they just move on with no penalty. In this case, Apple is a big enough company that they can afford to fight the case and have the willingness to fight what they perceive as an injustice. I fully expect them to win in appeals. Judge Cote gets overturned frequently.

[pwalker8]

It's unusual to appoint a monitor absent certain criteria. This case doesn't meet that criteria. What makes this case unusual isn't Apple's actions, but rather the novel legal theory that the judge bought into. As far as I know, Apple hasn't done anything particularly unusual (or what was previously considered illegal).

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

Well, for one thing, I would like to see the case evolve beyond one judge's opinion sans jury.

There is a lot more to this story than some are willing to admit. Here is a story from CNN

http://features.blogs.fortune.cnn.co.../?iid=HP_River

Apparently appointing a monitor at all in a case like this is a very unusual act, as is appointing a monitor who has the close personal ties that this person seems to have with Judge Cote. It sure seems a lot like Bromwich is trying to rack up as many hours as he can before the appeal hearings come to pass.

Appointing a monitor is unusual because the party being monitored usually agrees to being monitored.

And this can be a matter of opinion, but it doesn't seem to me like Bromwich is trying to rack up as many hours as he can before the appeal hearings come to pass:
- Time was wasted because Apple insisted that the monitor was supposed to only start working after January 14. Apple was wrong.
- Time was wasted because Apple insists on discussing Bromwich's fees.