Daily Report: Prosecutors Say Apple Had Greater Role in Fixing E-Book Prices

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The Justice Department said on Tuesday that Apple was the “ringmaster” in a conspiracy to fix e-books prices, a more direct leadership role than portrayed in the department’s April 2012 antitrust lawsuit, Edward Wyatt and Nick Wingfield report in The New York Times.

In its suit, the government said Apple and five publishers conspired to fix e-book prices to force Amazon to raise its e-book price from a uniform $9.99 to the higher level noted by Steve Jobs in an e-mail released on Tuesday, which publishers wanted. That, the department said, resulted in higher prices to consumers and higher profits for Apple and its partners.

The e-mail was released as part of the government’s filing before the trial in the case, set to begin on June 3 in New York.

The e-mail, from Mr. Jobs of Apple to James Murdoch of News Corporation, reads as if one old sport were trying to cajole another into joining a caper: “Throw in with Apple and see if we can all make a go of this to create a real mainstream e-books market at $12.99 and $14.99.”

Two days after Mr. Jobs’s e-mail to Mr. Murdoch, HarperCollins, the publishing company owned by News Corporation, signed an agreement with Apple to force all sellers of electronic books to adopt the new pricing model, the government said.