US: Apple pursues legal fight against monitor

Apple filed a request to temporarily freeze their court-appointed monitor late last week following claims the lawyer is charging the company excessively and has stretched his defined duties.

Michael Bromwich was appointed to oversee Apple operations last July as part of an antitrust settlement that found Apple to have conspired to fix eBooks prices. Since, Apple has claimed Bromwich is harming the company, writing in its court filing that the lawyer “is conducting a roving investigation that is interfering with Apple’s business operations, risking the public disclosure of privileged and confidential information, and imposing substantial and rapidly escalating costs on Apple that it will never be able to recover.”

Apple had objected to Bromwich’s doings before with US District Judge Denise Cote, who appointed the monitor. Apple claimed to Judge Cote – and again in its filing – that the monitor’s duties “as it is being interpreted and implemented by Mr. Bromwich as the Court’s agent is flatly unconstitutional, and will be reversed on appeal.”

In response, reports say Department of Justice lawyer Lawrence Buterman slammed Apple’s filing as an attempt to “prevent [Bromwich] from carrying out his responsibilities.”

Full Content: CNN Money

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