Pearson’s Penguin unit has made an offer to the European Union to end the deals it made with Apple over ebook prices, bringing the nearly year and half long ebook antitrust investigation involving Apple and a handful of large publishers nearly to an end.
Penguin has offered to end “most-favored nation” — which kept rival booksellers from selling ebooks at a lower price point than Apple — for five years, according to Reuters. The agreement will also allow retailers to set prices and discounts for two years, as is the case with the other publishers that have settled with the Commission.
Penguin is the last remaining publisher still negotiating with the Commission, as the other accused publishers and Apple reached a settlement in December.
It was December 2011 when the Commission began investigating allegations of illegal agreements between Apple, Hachette Livre, Penguin, Harper Collins, Simon & Schuster, and Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holzbrinck. Apple was initially reluctant to settle, but eventually relented.
Amazon will most likely see the greatest benefit from the end of the “agency model,” where publishers set a price for content, as it prefers to operate under the “wholesale model” where publishers suggest a price, and booksellers are free to set their own prices.
As is usual for cases like this, no one has been found guilty of, or admitted to, any wrongdoing, and there have been no fines assessed.
