In April 2012, Apple and five other major book publishers were accused of trying to implement a “agency model” that would fix the prices of ebooks at a price higher than what they are now. The Department of Justice (DoJ) has accused all of them on anti-trust infringement. Apple had allegedly pushed for the agency model to dethrone Amazon and its dominance in ebook market. Amazon currently owns a huge chunk of ebook market, at times Amazon sells books at prices lower than what it purchases for in an attempt to drive more customers to their site. The DoJ seems to have settled with all of the book publishers apart from Apple as of now. It is said that the Judge in charge, Denise Cote, set a conference call with Apple CEO Tim Cook for 13th March to clear things off with Apple as well.
Apple along with the other five publishing houses, Macmillan, Penguin, Hachette, HarperCollins, and Simon & Schuster, is accused to have set the prices on iBookStore on their own. In the pricing strategy, the publishers were forced not to sell their books at a price cheaper than what they are offering on iBookStore. But Apple argued that the move has brought in sever competitiveness by limiting Amazon.