The United States Justice Department said that it is satisfied with the reforms that Apple has put in place for compliance with antitrust laws, despite the company having a rocky relationship with an antitrust monitor that was appointed to oversee Apple's e-book business.
The government has recommended that the antitrust monitor, which is in contract until Friday, to no longer be renewed.
Apple has "now implemented meaningful antitrust policies, procedures, and training programs that were obviously lacking at the time Apple participated in and facilitated the horizontal price-fixing conspiracy found by this court," wrote the United States Justice Department to U.S. District Judge Denise Cote that ruled back in 2013 that Apple illegally schemed with publishers for setting the prices at which e-books would be sold.
The letter also included a reference to the troubled relationship between Apple and Michael Bromwich, the appointed antitrust monitor. Apple admitted that it had a rocky relationship with Bromwich, but maintained that the company always cooperated.
Apple said that it would remain committed to maintaining an antitrust compliance program that would be engaging, effective and comprehensive, with the company claiming that it has dropped all business models that replace the wholesale model of the e-book market with an agency model. This was the issue back in 2012, when Apple's price fixing practice resulted in an increase in the prices of e-books across the industry by as much as 20 percent.
Apple petitioned back in 2013 for the removal of Bromwich in the company's Cupertino headquarters, with the company claiming that Bromwich was causing irreparable harm due to actions such as improper seeking of interviews, requesting access to classified documents and posting excessive bills. The petition was rejected in February 2014.
Bromwich, on the other hand, reported that Apple's management was generally unhelpful, with negative and unfavorable responses regularly coming from the company.
The cause of the conflict between Apple and Bromwich appears to be that Apple has not admitted to any wrongdoing over the e-book price fixing case, while Bromwich, as a court-appointed monitor, is usually willingly placed in such a role by a defendant to oversee certain aspects as opposed to having to go through criminal sanctions.
Whatever the case may be regarding the relationship between Apple and Bromwich, the monitoring will come to an end on Oct. 16.
