NEW YORK — A federal appeals panel is trying to decide whether Apple Inc. or Amazon.com Inc. was the bigger bully when price wars over electronic books heated up a few years ago.
After hearing oral arguments Monday, a three-judge panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan did not immediately rule on Apple's appeal of a lower-court judge's finding that it violated antitrust laws by colluding with e-book publishers to raise prices and upset Amazon's control of prices when it entered the market in 2010.
U.S. District Judge Denise Cote ruled after a civil trial in summer 2013 and ordered the technology giant to modify contracts with publishers to prevent price fixing and appointed a monitor to review the company's antitrust policies and training.
On Monday, one appeals judge questioned whether it was unfair for Apple to bust Amazon's one-time monopoly of the e-book market.
Theodore J. Boutrous Jr., an attorney with the Cupertino, California, company, portrayed Seattle-based Amazon as monopolizing the e-book market before Apple arrived on the scene.
Boutrous said Amazon set e-book prices at $9.99, cheaper than cost, as it controlled over 90 percent of the market.
"The prices were artificially low," Boutrous said, explaining why publishers embraced the relief Apple offered when it opened the market to new pricing possibilities.
"That's competition," he said. "That's not price fixing."
