Appeals Court Rebukes Apple Monitor, But Leaves Him in Place
So Apple just failed in their latest attempt to get the court-appointed antitrust monitor fired. Fortune reports that the appeals court wasn’t too happy with Micheal Bromwich but did not go so far as to remove him:
In a ruling published on Thursday, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the conduct of the monitor, Michael Bromwich, gave “pause” and was “the opposite of best practice” but nonetheless refused to grant Apple’s request to remove Bromwich from his position.
Bromwich took up the role of monitor at the behest of U.S. District Judge Denise Cote, who ruled in 2013 that Apple had been the mastermind of an ebook price-fixing conspiracy. The judge appointed Bromwich to assess Apple’s compliance with a court-ordered antitrust program. Bromwich’s behavior, however, soon enraged Apple.
You can find the ruling on Scribd, and for additional coverage head on over to the WSJ, and Reuters.
Frankly, I’m not surprised by today’s ruling. While Apple and its partisans weren’t happy about Bromwich’s conduct, I wasn’t convinced that he had done anything truly horrible enough to merit an appeals court intervening. Had that been the case, Apple would have succeeded in getting Judge Cote to set him aside or rein him in a long time ago.
Remember, Apple did try just that early last year, to no avail, and when Judge Cote ruled against them Apple then appealed to the 2nd Circuit Court, but that went nowhere.
And now Apple has failed again.
It looks like Apple’s only hope is that the appeal court overturns the case either in whole or in part, but just about the only people who think that has a chance in hell are Apple partisans.
image by tuukkar
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