- U.S. District Judge Denise Cote is considering restricting the kind of ebook deals that Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) can formulate with five publishers for five years, including preventing the company from discounting ebooks for at least two years.
- Cote may also prevent Apple from negotiating with publishers at the same time in order to prevent the kind of price collusion that Cote has found them liable for.
- However, Cote may not impose a court-appointed external monitor on Apple, as requested by the DOJ.
- The publishers involved include News Corp's (NASDAQ:NWS) HarperCollins, CBS's (NYSE:CBS) Simon & Schuster and Penguin Random House (NYSE:PSO).
- Cote has also started scheduling proceedings that could lead to a damages trial. While states and consumers haven't yet put a price on the amount suffered, an Apple layer said the figure could reach the "hundreds of millions of dollars." (previous)