The court appointed ebook antitrust monitor watching over Apple’s ebook dealings fired back at Apple on Monday. Michael Bromwich filed a declaration saying Apple has been uncooperative compared to his past monitoring assignments, and denying claims of “a broad and amorphous inquisition.”
In an 11-page document filed with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, Bromwich, who is tasked with overseeing Apple’s e-book pricing activities as a result of a Department of Justice price-fixing trial, detailed his experience with Apple’s legal team, executives, board members and even the public.
In the filing, Bromwich offered multiple examples of what he sees as Apple’s unwillingness to assist in making the operation run smoother.
Using emails from Apple’s senior director for competition law and policy Kyle Andeer, Bromwich noters multiple instances when requests for interviews with board members and senior executives were rejected, noting he had “never waited as long as a month” for such meetings.
Bromwich says Andeer noted that executives in the company were still upset over the court’s ruling, and would “never get over the case,” and as such were concerned that Bromwich and his team would see that there was still “a lot of anger” existing within the company.
Apple has so far granted interviews with 11 people for a combined total of 13 hours, and of those, only one interview was with a requested board member, while seven were with lawyers, rather than “business people.”
Bromwich also questioned Apple’s insistence on not conducting interviews in their Cupertino, CA headquarters, instead insisting they be conducted at a Sunnyvale, CA satellite location. “This is far less access than I have ever received during a comparable period of time in the three other monitorships I have conducted,” wrote Bromwich.
The monitor also complained of requested materials not being provided in a timely or satisfactory manner.
Apple has been locking horns with Bromwich since the former Justice Department Inspector General was assigned to his overseer post, charging that the monitor has overstepped his bounds, made unreasonable requests, and overcharged, billing $138,000 for two-weeks worth of work.
Bromwich’s declaration can be read in full below:
