Apple’s iBooks antitrust monitor can finally leave
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Apple won't have someone looking over their shoulder anymore in its iBooks division. The U.S. Justice Department has now ended the two-year monitoring of that part of the company's business, stating that Apple has now put in new rules that should keep it from violating antitrust laws in the future.
The monitoring began in 2013, after Apple lost its court battle with the U.S. government, which claimed the company violated antitrust laws when it made pricing deals with the major book publishers for its iBooks business. The court appointed Michael Bromwich, a former Justice Department inspector general, as the person designed to monitor's Apple's activities to make sure no more violations occurred.
Apple has used the court system a number of times to remove Bromwich as its monitor since he was appointed to no avail. Now, according to Bloomberg, he is no longer needed:
The government on Monday recommended that the monitoring not be extended. In a letter to the Manhattan federal judge who found in 2013 that Apple illegally conspired with publishers to set e-book prices, the U.S. said Apple has "now implemented meaningful antitrust policies, procedures, and training programs that were obviously lacking at the time Apple participated in and facilitated the horizontal price-fixing conspiracy found by this court."
Source: Bloomberg
