October 10, 2024

Apple Executive Defends Pricing in Case on E-Books

“Wow, we have really lit the fuse on a powder keg,” Mr. Jobs wrote in the e-mail dated Jan. 30, 2010, to Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of Internet software and services.

The e-mail was brought up as evidence during the second half of Mr. Cue’s testimony in a Manhattan courtroom on Monday, where much of the discussion focused on whether Apple intended to help the publishers raise Amazon’s prices.

Mr. Cue testified on Monday that Mr. Jobs’s e-mail was not a memo congratulating him about how Apple’s entry into the e-book market affected Amazon, causing it to switch to a business model called agency pricing, where the publishers, not the retailer, set the price of the books. Mr. Cue said Mr. Jobs was remarking on the company’s ability to “cause ripples” in the e-book industry, which was then largely dominated by Amazon.

While Mr. Cue conceded that some e-book prices had gone up as a result of agency pricing, he noted that many titles might not have become available in any digital store at all if Apple had not introduced agency pricing to the market. He said he had learned from his meetings with publishers that they were unhappy with Amazon’s uniform $9.99 pricing for e-books and that they were planning to use a tactic known as windowing — delaying the release of an e-book until after the more expensive hardcover had been in stores for a while.

Mr. Cue testified that both he and Mr. Jobs believed that “withholding books is a disaster for any bookstore.”

The Justice Department was not persuaded. Lawrence Buterman, a Justice Department lawyer, asked Mr. Cue whether he was aware that only 37 e-books had ever been windowed.

“The number doesn’t matter,” Mr. Cue said. “What matters is which books. Thirty-seven could be a huge number if it’s the right books.”

Both parties showed their evidence on a projector screen. Apple’s legal team used a MacBook to shuffle between evidence documents, stacking them side by side in split screens and zooming in on specific paragraphs.

In contrast, the Justice Department’s lawyers could show only one piece of evidence at a time. One video that Mr. Buterman played as evidence failed to produce the audio commentary needed to make his point.

In its antitrust case brought a year ago, the federal government is trying to cast Apple as the ringmaster that conspired with five big book publishers to raise e-book prices. The publishers have all settled their cases.

On Monday, the Justice Department’s lawyers homed in on a condition in Apple’s contracts with the publishers: the “most favored nation” clause, which required publishers to allow Apple to sell e-books at the same price as the books would be sold in any other store. Apple has said this clause existed to guarantee that Apple customers got the lowest e-book prices. But Mr. Buterman argued that it defeated Amazon’s ability to compete on price, and that it left Amazon with no choice but to switch to the agency model while allowing the publishers to raise prices.

Mr. Cue said he disagreed. He noted that Amazon had 90 percent of the e-book market before Apple entered the game.

“Amazon could have negotiated a better deal,” he said. “They had a lot more power.”

Lawyers for Apple and the government spent much of the hearing debating whether the e-mails exchanged between Apple executives and publishers illustrated Apple’s intent to help the publishers force Amazon’s hand. In one e-mail sent to Mr. Jobs, Mr. Cue was reviewing his meeting with the publishers, saying they were interested in solving the “Amazon issue.”

Mr. Cue said he was referring to the publishers’ ability to price books above Amazon’s uniform price of $9.99 in Apple’s iBookstore. Apple had proposed price caps of $12.99 to $14.99 for new releases. But he said this did not refer to enabling the publishers to force Amazon to raise prices, too.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/18/technology/apple-executive-defends-pricing-and-contracts-in-antitrust-case.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Hedge Funds May Sue Greece if It Tries to Force Loss

The novel approach would have the funds arguing in the European Court of Human Rights that Greece had violated bondholder rights, though that could be a multiyear project with no guarantee of a payoff. And it would not be likely to produce sympathy for these funds, which many blame for the lack of progress so far in the negotiations over restructuring Greece’s debts.

The tactic has emerged in conversations with lawyers and hedge funds as it became clear that Greece was considering passing legislation to force all private bondholders to take losses, while exempting the European Central Bank, which is the largest institutional holder of Greek bonds with 50 billion euros or so.

Legal experts suggest that the investors may have a case because if Greece changes the terms of its bonds so that investors receive less than they are owed, that could be viewed as a property rights violation — and in Europe, property rights are human rights.

The bond restructuring is a critical element for Greece to receive its latest bailout from the international community. As part of that 130 billion euro ($165.5 billion) rescue, Greece is looking to cut its debt by 100 billion euros through 2014 by forcing its bankers to accept a 50 percent loss on new bonds that they receive in a debt exchange.

According to one senior government official involved in the negotiations, Greece will present an offer to creditors this week that includes an interest rate or coupon on new bonds received in exchange for the old bonds that is less than the 4 percent private creditors have been pushing for — and they will be forced to accept it whether they like it or not.

“This is crunch time for us. The time for niceties has expired,” said the person, who was not authorized to talk publicly. “These guys will have to accept everything.”

The surprise collapse last week of the talks in Athens raised the prospect that Greece might not receive a crucial 30 billion euro payment and might miss a make-or-break 14.5 billion euro bond payment on March 20 — throwing the country into default and jeopardizing its membership in the euro zone.

Talks between the two sides picked back up on Wednesday evening in Athens when Charles Dallara of the Institute of International Finance, who represents private sector bondholders, met with Prime Minister Lucas Papademos of Greece and his deputies.

While both sides have tried to adopt a conciliatory tone, the threat of a disorderly default and the spread of contagion to other vulnerable countries like Portugal remains pronounced.

“In my opinion, it is unlikely that this is the last restructuring we go through in Europe,” said Hans Humes, a veteran of numerous debt restructurings and the president and chief executive of Greylock Capital, the only hedge fund on the private sector steering committee, which is taking the lead in the Greek negotiations.

“The private sector has come a long way. We hope that the other parties agree that it is more constructive to reach a voluntary agreement than the alternative.”

At the root of the dispute is a growing insistence on the part of Germany and the International Monetary Fund that as Greece’s economy continues to collapse, its debt — now about 140 percent of its gross domestic product — needs to be reduced as rapidly as possible.

Those two powerful actors — which control the purse strings for current and future Greek bailouts — have pressured Greece to adopt a more aggressive tone toward its creditors. As a result, Greece has demanded that bondholders accept not only a 50 percent loss on their new bonds but also a lower interest rate on them. That is a tough pill for investors to swallow, given the already steep losses they face, and one that would be likely to increase the cumulative haircut to between 60 and 70 percent.

The lower interest rate would help Greece by reducing the punitive amounts of interest it pays on its debt, making it easier to cut its budget deficit.

To increase Greece’s leverage, the country’s negotiators have said they could attach collective action clauses to the outstanding bonds, a step that would give them the legal right to saddle all bondholders with a loss. This would particularly be aimed at the so-called free riders — speculators who have said they will not agree to a haircut and are betting that when Greece receives its aid bundle in March, their bonds will be repaid in full.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/19/business/global/hedge-funds-may-sue-greece-if-it-tries-to-force-loss.html?partner=rss&emc=rss