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EU: Penguin closes the books on price-fixing case

By  |  July 29, 2013

Publishing giant Penguin Random House has officially settled its price-fixing case with the European Commission, say reports. The watchdog formally accepted Penguin’s offer to revise its pricing system following the regulators’ findings of anticompetitive behavior in the way the publishers worked with Apple Inc. to set ebooks prices. In a statement, Commissioner Joaquin Almunia said the agreement was now legally binding, closing a longstanding case on Apple as well as all five of the publishers accused of fixing ebooks prices. Earlier this year Penguin offered concessions to the EU that would stop the company’s practice of preventing retailers from offering discounts on ebooks for the next two years. Penguin Random House is the recently-combined company of Penguin and random House, which received merger clearance from the Commission last April.

Full Content: Bloomberg

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