Every Now and Then

Every now and then I post on the future of e-readers, self publishing, and trends in the digital publishing age. I knew and have discussed the difficulties that Apple is experiencing due to their apparent, suspected, (unproven) price fixing of digital content for their iPads, and I was duely aghast. I was not aghast enough, based on this article I read in the WSJ today.

The Apple Inquisition goes into a lot of detail for an opinion piece and even more subdued outrage at what is happening to Apple. I followed right along with my own outrage. Among the passages that caught my attention:

Mr. Bromwich says he must oversee Apple's "corporate structure, process, culture and tone" and the "tone at the top of the company," 

and

The improper relationship between Judge Cote and Mr. Bromwich extends beyond their friendship, political ties and ex parte communications, as we reported in December in "Apple's Star Chamber." Special masters are usually imposed on companies in negotiated legal settlements and the litigants consent to the terms of their appointment. Yet Apple is appealing Judge Cote's injunction and the terms of Mr. Bromwich's installation.

The core problem is that under Article III of the Constitution judges aren't allowed to conduct open-ended investigations, as Mr. Bromwich is doing. To the extent his position is legitimate, he is serving as an agent of the court. Judges can appoint surrogates to help carry out their judicial duties, but in that case they must be as objective and impartial as judges.

But the worst is:

Mr. Bromwich's declaration is filled with what he regards as personal slights, such as the fact that Apple scheduled interviews at a remote location instead of its Cupertino headquarters. But his main accusation is that Apple is "using its outside counsel as a shield to prevent interaction between senior management and my monitoring team."

So try to sort this one out. An agent acting on behalf of the judiciary volunteers to become literally the star witness for the plaintiffs. This arm of the court then claims that the defendant's right to counsel is preventing him from conducting his adversarial investigation.

I haven't even posted the passages about the veiled threat.

The worst part in my view is how under-reported this all is. Imagine this happening to another company?

The silver lining? This too was reported today in the same paper. Based on that . . . looks like Apple is still plugging along well ahead of the competition. I'll keep my stock.