Apple wants trial on e-book price-fixing: lawyer

apple E-Books

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Apple Inc wants to go to trial to defend itself against U.S. government allegations that it conspired with publishers to raise prices of electronic books, a lawyer for the Silicon Valley giant said in court on Wednesday.

Two publishers took a similar stance in the first hearing in Manhattan federal court since the anti-trust division of the Department of Justice last week accused Apple and five publishers of colluding to break up Amazon.com's low-cost dominance of the digital book market.

The publishers are Macmillan, a unit of Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck GmbH, and Pearson Plc's Penguin Group.

"Our basic view is that we would like the case to be decided on the merits," Apple lawyer, Daniel Floyd, told U.S. District Judge Denise Cote. "We believe that this is not an appropriate case against us and we would like to validate that."

The judge scheduled the next hearing for June 22. The court also heard that 15 U.S. states and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico were in settlement talks with the three publishers. If all 50 states were ultimately to settle, it would have an impact on a separate class action brought by consumers, a HarperCollins lawyer, Shepard Goldfein, told the judge.

Hachette and HarperCollins also settled with a group of U.S. states, agreeing to pay $51 million in restitution to consumers who bought e-books. Simon & Schuster is in negotiations with the states to join that settlement, a lawyer for the company said in court on Wednesday.

The European Commission is also probing Apple and publishers in a similar antitrust probe. It said on Wednesday that it had received settlement proposals from Apple and four publishers - Simon & Schuster, Harper Collins, Hachette Livre and Macmillan's parent.

The case is USA v Apple Inc et al in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, No. 12-2826 and No. 11-md-02293.