Macmillan Settles Over E-Books Price Fixing

And then there was one. Macmillan, the last of the Big Five publishing houses charged in an antitrust case over e-books price fixing with computer giant Apple, has reached a settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice. But the company still insists on its innocence. "I had an old fashioned belief that you should not settle if you have done no wrong," Macmillan chief executive John Sargent wrote in a statement. "A few weeks ago I got an estimate of the maximum possible damage figure. I cannot share the breathtaking amount with you, but it was much more than the entire equity of our company." Hachette, HarperCollins, and Simon & Schuster reached settlements with the DOJ in September, and Penguin Group settled in December. A trial against Apple is expected to begin in June.