路透社（Reuters）和彭博社（Bloomberg）报道援引两位未具名消息人员提供的信息称，苹果公司（Apple）及另外一两家大型出版商正准备就违反反托拉斯法应诉，时间最早可能会在周三。

    五家出版商被指控串通苹果公司操纵电子书价格。据报道其中三家公司已就此案与欧盟委员会（the European Commission）和美国司法部（the U.S. Department of Justice）达成和解。

    这三家出版商分别是哥伦比亚广播公司（CBS）旗下的西蒙舒斯特尔公司（Simon&Schuster）、法国传媒集团拉加德尔（Lagardère SCA）旗下的艾谢特图书集团（Hachette Book Group）以及新闻集团（News Corp）旗下的哈珀科林斯出版集团（HarperCollins）。据推测，这三家公司都尽力避免与政府陷入漫长的诉讼拉锯战，以免为此付出代价。

    据报道，苹果公司和另外两家出版商，即麦克米兰公司（McMillan）和皮尔松公司旗下的企鹅出版集团（Pearson’s Penguin）已经做好了应战准备。

    这几家出版商希望，在当前所谓的代理模式下保留自身的定价权利。亚马逊公司（Amazon）采用批发价定价方案，以低于成本的价格销售电子书，通常畅销书只卖9.99美元，使得出版商以全价销售印刷版图书变得更加困难。

    苹果方面则试图保留电子书商店iBookstore。

    备受争议的是，2010年史蒂夫•乔布斯曾经就iPad电子书业务达成了一笔交易，他对传记作家沃尔特•艾萨克森描述了当年的内情：

    “我们告诉出版商，‘我们将采取代理模式，由你们来定价，我们再将价格提高30%，当然，消费者可能需要多支付一点钱，但不管怎么说这是你们想要的。’”

    “出版商后来去找亚马逊公司谈，‘你们得签一份代理协议，否则我们就不会为你们供应书籍。’”

    乔布斯还坚持让出版商签署所谓的最惠国待遇条款，条款规定，他们不得以更低价格向亚马逊或者其他电子书零售竞争对手提供书籍。

    Reuters and Bloomberg have both reported -- citing a pair of unnamed sources -- that Apple (AAPL) and one or two major publishers are preparing to get sued for antitrust violations, perhaps as early as today.

    Three of the five publishers accused of colluding with Apple to fix the prices of e-books have reportedly accepted deals offered by the European Commission and the U.S. Department of Justice.

    The settlers -- CBS's (CBS) Simon & Schuster, Lagardère SCA's Hachette Book Group and News Corp.'s (NWS) HarperCollins -- are presumably trying to avoid the cost of engaging in a protracted legal war with the government.

    Apple and the two remaining publishers -- McMillan and Pearson's (PSO) Penguin -- are reportedly prepared to go the mat.

    The publishers are trying to preserve the right to set their own prices under the so-called agency model. Using a wholesale pricing scheme, Amazon (AMZN) had been selling their e-books below cost -- typically $9.99 for bestsellers -- making it harder for publishers to charge full price for printed books.

    Apple, for its part, is trying to save the iBookstore.

    At issue is the 2010 deal Steve Jobs made to get e-books on the iPad that he described to biographer Walter Isaacson as follows:

    "We told the publishers, 'We'll go to the agency model, where you set the price, and we get our 30%, and yes, the customer pays a little more, but that's what you want anyway.

    "They went to Amazon and said, 'You're going to sign an agency contract or we're not going to give you the books.' "

    Jobs also insisted that publishers sign a so-called most-favored nation clause that said they couldn't sell their books more cheaply to Amazon or any other e-book rival.