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A federal judge ruled Wednesday that Apple conspired to raise the prices of e-books.
The e-book publishers at issue -- CBS's Simon & Schuster, Hachette Book Group, Pearson's Penguin Group, Macmillan and News Corp.'s HarperCollins -- settled and didn't go to trial. Apple held out, and the U.S. Department of Justice brought a civil antitrust suit against the company in 2012.
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The DOJ alleged that Apple and the publishers engaged in a "conspiracy" to team up against Amazon and fix the price of e-books -- and Apple was the ringleader of the deal.
U.S. District Judge Denise Cote agreed after hearing three weeks of arguments in June.
"Apple not only willingly joined the conspiracy, but also forcefully facilitated it," Judge Cote wrote. "This price-fixing conspiracy would not have succeeded without the active facilitation and encouragement of Apple."
In response to the ruling, Apple said it was simply giving consumers more choice in the e-book market, "breaking Amazon's monopolistic grip on the publishing industry."
"Apple did not conspire to fix e-book pricing, and we will continue to fight against these false accusations," said Tom Neumayr, spokesman for Apple. "We've done nothing wrong and we will appeal the judge's decision."
Publishers hated Amazon's discounted price structure, under which the retailer set the prices for e-books. Amazon sold many titles for $9.99 each, a price publishers thought was far too low.
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