An appeals court on Wednesday denied Apple’s efforts to have e-books antitrust monitor Michael Bromwich removed from his overseeing the company’s business, saying the company lacked sufficient reasons to have him replaced.
In the decision, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York admitted that some of the actions made by Bromwich “give pause.” But that wasn’t enough to have him entirely removed from his oversight position, as noted by Reuters.
Bromwich was assigned to oversee Apple’s business operations in October 2013, following the company’s loss in an antitrust lawsuit brought by the U.S. Government. Bromwich was a former DOJ Inspector General and federal prosecutor, who had previously served as the first director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, a body created in response to the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill. He has also served as an independent monitor to the Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia in 2002, and also served as a federal lawyer in the U.S. case against Oliver North.
Apple was found guilty in July 2013 of colluding with five major e-book publishers in a price-fixing scheme covering e-books sold in the iBookstore. The company and Bromwich had difficulty in seeing eye-to-eye form the beginning, with the relationship worsening in recent months.
Bromwich told Judge Denise Cote in April that Apple has taken a more “adversarial tone” recently, telling her no conversations have been conducted since January, as Apple continually rejected his requests.
For Apple’s part, the company says his reviews have gone beyond the original intent by the court, and while the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals apparently agreed with some of the company’s criticisms of Bromwich, it didn’t feel there was enough evidence to justify the appointing of a new compliance monitor.
