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Court rejects Apple appeal over e-books

Washington — The US Supreme Court rejected an appeal from Apple Monday and left in place a ruling that the company conspired with publishers to raise electronic book prices when it sought to challenge Amazon.com's dominance of the market.

The justices' order on Monday lets stand an appeals court ruling that found Cupertino, California-based Apple violated antitrust laws in 2010.

Apple wanted to raise prices to wrest some book sales away from Amazon, which controlled 90% of the market and sold most popular books online for $9.99. Amazon's share of the market dropped to 60%.

The 2-1 ruling by the New York-based appeals court sustained a trial judge's finding that Apple orchestrated an illegal conspiracy to raise prices. A dissenting judge called Apple's actions legal, "gloves-off competition."

The Justice Department and 33 states and territories originally sued Apple and five publishers. The publishers all settled and signed consent decrees prohibiting them from restricting e-book retailers' ability to set prices.

In settlements of lawsuits brought by individual states, Apple has agreed to pay $400m to be distributed to consumers and $50m for attorney fees and payments to states.

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