High stakes if Apple e-books antitrust case goes to trial

NEW YORK (Reuters) - As the only remaining defendant in the U.S. government's e-books antitrust case, Apple Inc appears headed for a high-stakes trial that could significantly increase the personal computer company's liability in related litigation.

Apple faces a June 3 trial date over civil allegations by the U.S. Department of Justice that it conspired with five publishers to raise the price of e-books and to fight the dominance of Amazon.com Inc.

On Friday, Macmillan became the fifth and final publisher to settle with the government. The Justice Department alleges that Apple came to agreements with each of the publishers meant to ensure that e-book prices at its iBookstore and other retailers would remain higher than those offered by Amazon.com.

At the Apple trial, to be overseen by U.S. District Judge Denise Cote in Manhattan, the Justice Department will seek not monetary damages but a judicial decree that Apple violated antitrust law, court papers said.

Among other things, government lawyers want the judge to issue an order enjoining Apple from engaging in any conduct similar to that alleged in the case. Such a judgment could make Apple vulnerable to steep damages in related litigation.

Apple and the publishers also face a class-action suit filed on behalf of consumers and a similar suit filed by dozens of state attorneys general. Neither suit puts a figure on the exact amount of damages sought.

The Consumer Federation of America estimated in a letter last year to the Senate antitrust subcommittee that e-book price fixing would likely cost consumers more than $200 million in 2012. State and federal antitrust laws allow plaintiffs to recover triple the amount of actual damages established at trial.

If Apple loses against the Justice Department, those plaintiffs would be in a "powerful position" to win their cases, according to Harry First, a professor at New York University School of Law specializing in antitrust.

Under the Clayton Act, an antitrust statute, plaintiffs can use judgments obtained by the U.S. government as evidence against defendants.

If Apple loses, it is unclear whether both the states and the private plaintiffs will be able to seek and recover damages for the same conduct.

By contrast, if Apple were to prevail, it would cause "a lot more trouble" for the plaintiffs in the other cases, First said.

Apple declined to comment. It still may settle with the U.S. government.

In December, Apple and four publishers came to an agreement with European Union regulators over their antitrust probe into e-books. The fifth publisher, Pearson Plc's Penguin group, also under investigation, was not part of the European deal announced in December.

LITTLE TO GAIN

Apple may have little to gain by going to trial in the United States, according to some legal experts.

Under settlements with the Justice Department, the five publishers were required to terminate or not renew deals with Apple and other retailers that the government claimed were anti-competitive.

Apple and the government have less to argue over since those deals have been undone, Daniel Crane, a law professor at the University of Michigan Law School, said.

"What are they fighting over?" he said.

Crane added that Apple may be interested in going to trial to establish an antitrust principle that might help other aspects of its business such as content deals with entertainment companies.

The trial would be a big test for the Justice Department's Antitrust Division, which has sought to enhance its reputation for its trial capabilities under the Obama administration.

The government has been represented by Mark Ryan, who is director of litigation, a new position in the Antitrust Division. Ryan, who began in January 2012, was hired by Joseph Wayland, the former acting assistant attorney general for the Antitrust Division.

Last year Wayland cited Ryan in a speech about the Antitrust Division's focus on enhancing its litigation capabilities. Under the Obama administration, the Antitrust Division has scored a number of high-profile trial victories, including a criminal price-fixing case against Taiwan-based AU Optronics Corp last year and a successful challenge of H&R Block Inc's acquisition of 2SS Holdings Inc, developer of the TaxACT digital tax preparation business, in 2011.

Apple is represented by lawyers at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher. One of the law firm's attorneys who recently made an appearance in the case, Orin Snyder, won a favorable settlement last year for Voom HD Holdings, once a unit of Cablevision, following a trial against Dish Network.

Voom sued Dish for $2.4 billion alleging it violated a 15-year contract to carry a suite of high-definition channels, including those devoted to Kung Fu and video games. Under the settlement, Dish agreed to pay $700 million to Cablevision and AMC Networks, which Cablevision spun off last year.

The case is United States v. Apple Inc et al, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 12-02826.

(Reporting by Andrew Longstreth; Editing by Howard Goller and Eric Beech)

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IOC president Rogge to meet with wrestling leader

LAUSANNE, Switzerland (AP) — IOC President Jacques Rogge says he will meet with the head of wrestling's governing body to discuss ways the sport can fight to save its place in the 2020 Olympics.

The IOC executive board dropped wrestling from the program of the 2020 Games on Tuesday, removing it from the list of 26 sports at last year's London Olympics.

The decision, which still must be ratified by the full IOC in September, has been criticized by wrestling organizations around the world.

Rogge says he has been contacted by Raphael Martinetti, the president of international wrestling federation FILA. He says "we agreed we would meet at the first opportunity to have discussions."

Rogge says he was encouraged that FILA had "vowed to adapt the sport and vowed to fight to be eventually included in the 2020 slot."

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Report: Tracking system needed to fight fake drugs

WASHINGTON (AP) — Fighting the problem of fake drugs will require putting medications through a chain of custody like U.S. courts require for evidence in a trial, the Institute of Medicine reported Wednesday.

The call for a national drug tracking system comes a week after the Food and Drug Administration warned doctors, for the third time in about a year, that it discovered a counterfeit batch of the cancer drug Avastin that lacked the real tumor-killing ingredient.

Fake and substandard drugs have become an increasing concern as U.S. pharmaceutical companies move more of their manufacturing overseas. The risk made headlines in 2008 when U.S. patients died from a contaminated blood thinner imported from China.

The Institute of Medicine report made clear that this is a global problem that requires an international response, with developing countries especially at risk from phony medications. Drug-resistant tuberculosis, for example, is fueled in part by watered-down medications sold in many poor countries.

"There can be nothing worse than for a patient to take a medication that either doesn't work or poisons the patient," said Lawrence O. Gostin, a professor of health law at Georgetown University who led the IOM committee that studied how to combat the growing problem.

A mandatory drug-tracking system could use some form of barcodes or electronic tags to verify that a medication and the ingredients used to make it are authentic at every step, from the manufacturing of the active ingredient all the way to the pharmacy, he said. His committee examined fakes so sophisticated that health experts couldn't tell the difference between the packaging of the FDA-approved product and the look-alike.

"It's unreliable unless you know where it's been and can secure each point in the supply chain," Gostin said.

Patient safety advocates have pushed for that kind of tracking system for years, but attempts to include it in FDA drug-safety legislation last summer failed.

The report also concluded that:

—The World Health Organization should develop an international code of practice that sets guidelines for monitoring, regulation and law enforcement to crack down on fake drugs.

—States should beef up licensing requirements for the wholesalers and distributors who get a drug from its manufacturer to the pharmacy, hospital or doctor's office.

__Internet pharmacies are a particularly weak link, because fraudulent sites can mimic legitimate ones. The report urged wider promotion of the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy's online accreditation program as a tool to help consumers spot trustworthy sites.

The Institute of Medicine is an independent organization that advises the government on health matters.

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MacFarlane gets Oscar-hosting advice from Crystal

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Despite getting advice from Billy Crystal and working as hard as he can to prepare to host the Academy Awards, Seth MacFarlane thinks his hosting gig is a "one-off" and that he'll be "flayed by the press" no matter what he does.

Speaking to reporters Tuesday from the Dolby Theatre, where he'll host the 85th annual Oscar ceremony on Feb. 24, the entertainer was alternately confident and self-deprecating.

"I'm not feeling a lot of pressure from myself," he said. "There is sort of a comfort in knowing that no matter what you do, you're going to get the same reactions in the reviews. So I could put on the worst or the best show in the world and I will still be flayed by the press."

Still, he said he's spent five months trying to strike a comedic balance that will satisfy the fans of his animated shows and the comparatively highbrow audience inside the Dolby Theatre.

"I've set myself up for the hardest job in the world because the fans of 'Family Guy' and 'Ted' and the shows and whatnot that I do are expecting one thing. If I deliver that, this crowd will walk out," he said.

He promises to add bite to the show —"The whole point of their bringing me on was to give it a little bit more of an edge"— but acknowledges there will be a lot of ego in the audience.

"You have a room full of people who are at the top of their game — they're successful, they're being honored, they're attractive — and yet this is also the group with the thinnest skin on the planet," he said, "so it's a tough group."

Ultimately, he hopes to hybridize the pointed barbs of three-time Golden Globes host Ricky Gervais with the classy style of Crystal, who hosted the Oscars nine times, most recently last year.

The 39-year-old entertainer said Crystal gave him some helpful advice, including "get comfortable with your shoes before you go on stage."

MacFarlane will sing during the show and is also a nominee for his original song for "Ted," but said he expects to lose the category to Adele.

He's aiming for "very much a classic Oscars with a much more current edge," and said, "It's impossible to work any harder than I have in preparation for this," but he still doesn't think he'll be invited back.

"This will probably be the only time I'm asked to do this," he said. "It feels like a one-off. But I'm still thrilled to be doing it. It's going to be a lot of fun. I will very much enjoy having done it once it's over."

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Contact AP Entertainment Writer Sandy Cohen at www.twitter.com/APSandy.

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Online:

www.oscars.org

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Downtown condo market seeing rebound

Downtown Chicago's condo market is on the rebound after many moribund years, as sales volume and pricing improve in a market constrained by a lack of inventory.

It's a rare piece of good news for downtown condo owners as well as for developers pondering projects and trying to line up financing.

With a steady stream of apartment projects delivering in the next two years, the lack of new condo construction could signal opportunities for companies interested in pursuing smaller projects in key neighborhoods because the demand is there. Until those projects materialize, condo owners looking to sell face a better market than they have in several years.

Sales of existing downtown condos rose 31.2 percent last year, to 4,675 units sold, while the median sales price of $300,000 was a gain of about 2.6 percent from 2011, according to data from Appraisal Research Counselors.

Another piece of good news for current condo owners: Of the 65 downtown buildings studied by the firm, the average sales price per square foot of units sold during the second half of last year rose while the number of distressed condo sales in those buildings saw a substantial drop. Distressed sales, which accounted for  28 percent of sales since 2010, fell to 17 percent of sales during the second half of 2012.

In addition, only 1,104 newly constructed condo units remain unsold downtown.

"When we see more transactions occurring, that's a really good indication of demand," said Gail Lissner, a vice president at the firm. "The look of the condo market has changed in terms of unsold inventory."

Lissner's remarks came Tuesday during a lunchtime briefing on the local housing market.

Most of the unsold inventory, more than 500 units, is in the South Loop and the bulk of it is in the newly named and repositioned 500-unit South Loop Luxury by Related.

The three buildings, once called One Museum Park West, 1600 Museum Park and Museum Park Place 2 were taken over by New York-based Related Cos. in July have been renamed the Grant, Adler Place and Harbor View, respectively.

Since December, 40 units there are under contract, according to Related Midwest, which officially launched sales in the project Tuesday.

Other new projects reporting positive sales trends are Park Monroe Phase II, a 48-unit adaptive reuse project with 16 sales and CA3, a 40-unit building with 18 sales.

"These are all great indicators of strong sales," Lissner said. "Price stabilization has occurred in the market. You don't hear people talking about bottoming out. That was so yesterday."

mepodmolik@tribune.com | Twitter @mepodmolik

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Woman dead after falling from SUV; driver arrested after chase

Police are investigating the death of a woman who fell from an SUV that kept on traveling down the Bishop Ford Expressway this morning, eluding officers for five miles until it crashed on an exit ramp at 127th Street in Alsip, authorities said.

The driver was taken into custody, and police said they were investigating whether Jennifer Mitchell, 27, was pushed from the SUV around 154th Street in Dolton shortly before 1 a.m., officials said.

Mitchell was struck by a semi as she lay on the road, according to Master Sgt. Jason LoCoco said. The truck driver stopped and was not taken into custody. A second vehicle may have also struck the woman, according to the Cook County medical examiner's office.

Minutes later, a state trooper spotted the SUV on the Tri-State Tollway near159th Street, Master Sgt. Greg Minx said. The trooper signaled for the driver to pull over but he refused, according to police.  The trooper followed the SUV until it crashed on an exit ramp by 127th Street, some five miles away.

The driver, a 28-year-old man, was taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn but his injuries were not believed to be life-threatening, LaCoco said.

The driver was taken into police custody but has not been charged. Police he has not been cooperative.

Authorities shut all southbound lanes of the Bishop Ford from 147th Street to 159th Street for several hours as they investigated the incident. The lanes have since been reopened.

asege@tribune.com

Twitter: @AdamSege

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Nokia protests against Indian tax probe

HELSINKI (Reuters) - Finnish phone maker Nokia said on Tuesday it was protesting against a tax investigation in India, a crucial market, in the latest dispute involving a foreign company's tax.

Nokia said it has not yet received any information on potential claims resulting from the investigation that started in January.

Last week, Anglo-Dutch oil major Royal Dutch Shell's Indian unit said it would challenge a local tax claim on a share sale, while British mobile phone firm Vodafone is trying to settle a long-running $2 billion tax dispute with Indian authorities.

Countries like India are crucial for Nokia's attempt to hold on to global market share. Earlier on Tuesday, it announced an expansion of its Asha line of low-end smartphones and India is widely seen as a key market for such cheaper models.

Nokia said the actions of the tax authorities were "unacceptable and inconsistent with Indian standards of fair play and governance."

The company objected to officials entering its factory in Chennai, southern India, which is one of its biggest facilities. Nokia said it has invested over $330 million in Chennai since setting up the factory in 2006.

A senior Indian tax official said in January that the investigation related to allegations that Nokia may have evaded around 30 billion rupees ($558 million) in taxes.

Nokia said on Tuesday it was in full compliance with local laws as well as a bilateral tax treaty between India and Finland related to withholding tax.

(Reporting by Ritsuko Ando; Editing by Erica Billingham)

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IOC drops wrestling from 2020 Olympics

LAUSANNE, Switzerland (AP) — IOC leaders dropped wrestling from the Olympic program on Tuesday, a surprise decision that removes one of the oldest Olympic sports from the 2020 Games.

The IOC executive board decided to retain modern pentathlon — the event considered most at risk — and remove wrestling instead from its list of 25 "core sports."

The IOC board acted after reviewing the 26 sports on the current Olympic program. Eliminating one sport allows the International Olympic Committee to add a new sport to the program later this year.

Wrestling, which combines freestyle and Greco-Roman events, goes back to the inaugural modern Olympics in Athens in 1896.

"This is a process of renewing and renovating the program for the Olympics," IOC spokesman Mark Adams said. "In the view of the executive board, this was the best program for the Olympic Games in 2020. It's not a case of what's wrong with wrestling, it is what's right with the 25 core sports."

Adams said the decision was made by secret ballot over several rounds, with members voting each time on which sport should not be included in the core group. IOC President Jacques Rogge did not vote.

Wrestling was voted out from a final group that also included modern pentathlon, taekwondo and field hockey, officials familiar with the vote told The Associated Press. They spoke on condition of anonymity because the voting details were not made public.

The board voted after reviewing a report by the IOC program commission report that analyzed 39 criteria, including television ratings, ticket sales, anti-doping policy and global participation and popularity. With no official rankings or recommendations contained in the report, the final decision by the 15-member board was also subject to political, emotional and sentimental factors.

The international wrestling federation, known by the French acronym FILA, is headed by Raphael Martinetti and is based in Corsier-sur-Vevey, Switzerland. Calls to the federation for comment were not immediately returned.

Wrestling featured 344 athletes competing in 11 medal events in freestyle and seven in Greco-Roman at last year's London Olympics. Women's wrestling was added to the Olympics at the 2004 Athens Games.

Wrestling will now join seven other sports in applying for inclusion in 2020. The others are a combined bid from baseball and softball, karate, squash, roller sports, sport climbing, wakeboarding and wushu. They will be vying for a single opening in 2020.

The IOC executive board will meet in May in St. Petersburg, Russia, to decide which sport or sports to propose for 2020 inclusion. The final vote will be made at the IOC session, or general assembly, in September in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

It is extremely unlikely that wrestling would be voted back in so soon after being removed by the executive board.

"Today's decision is not final," Adams said. "The session is sovereign and the session will make the final decision."

The last sports removed from the Olympics were baseball and softball, voted out by the IOC in 2005 and off the program since the 2008 Beijing Games. Golf and rugby will be joining the program at the 2016 Games in Rio de Janeiro.

Previously considered under the closest scrutiny was modern pentathlon, which has been on the Olympic program since the 1912 Stockholm Games. It was created by French baron Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Olympic movement, and combines fencing, horse riding, swimming, running and shooting.

Klaus Schormann, president of governing body UIPM, lobbied hard to protect his sport's Olympic status and it paid off in the end.

"We have promised things and we have delivered," he said after Tuesday's decision. "That gives me a great feeling. It also gives me new energy to develop our sport further and never give up."

Modern pentathlon also benefited from the work of Juan Antonio Samaranch Jr., the son of the former IOC president who is a UIPM vice president and member of the IOC board.

"We were considered weak in some of the scores in the program commission report but strong in others," Samaranch told the AP. "We played our cards to the best of our ability and stressed the positives. Tradition is one of our strongest assets, but we are also a multi-sport discipline that produces very complete people."

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Pope shows lifetime jobs aren't always for life

The world seems surprised that an 85-year-old globe-trotting pope who just started tweeting wants to resign, but should it be? Maybe what should be surprising is that more leaders his age do not, considering the toll aging takes on bodies and minds amid a culture of constant communication and change.

There may be more behind the story of why Pope Benedict XVI decided to leave a job normally held for life. But the pontiff made it about age. He said the job called for "both strength of mind and body" and said his was deteriorating. He spoke of "today's world, subject to so many rapid changes," implying a difficulty keeping up despite his recent debut on Twitter.

"This seemed to me a very brave, courageous decision," especially because older people often don't recognize their own decline, said Dr. Seth Landefeld, an expert on aging and chairman of medicine at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

Age has driven many leaders from jobs that used to be for life — Supreme Court justices, monarchs and other heads of state. As lifetimes expand, the woes of old age are catching up with more in seats of power. Some are choosing to step down rather than suffer long declines and disabilities as the pope's last predecessor did.

Since 1955, only one U.S. Supreme Court justice — Chief Justice William Rehnquist — has died in office. Twenty-one others chose to retire, the most recent being John Paul Stevens, who stepped down in 2010 at age 90.

When Thurgood Marshall stepped down in 1991 at the age of 82, citing health reasons, the Supreme Court justice's answer was blunt: "What's wrong with me? I'm old. I'm getting old and falling apart."

One in 5 U.S. senators is 70 or older, and some have retired rather than seek new terms, such as Hawaii's Daniel Akaka, who left office in January at age 88.

The Netherlands' Queen Beatrix, who just turned 75, recently said she will pass the crown to a son and put the country "in the hands of a new generation."

In Germany, where the pope was born, Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is 58, said the pope's decision that he was no longer fit for the job "earns my very highest respect."

"In our time of ever-lengthening life, many people will be able to understand how the pope as well has to deal with the burdens of aging," she told reporters in Berlin.

Experts on aging agreed.

"People's mental capacities in their 80s and 90s aren't what they were in their 40s and 50s. Their short-term memory is often not as good, their ability to think quickly on their feet, to execute decisions is often not as good," Landefeld said. Change is tougher to handle with age, and leaders like popes and presidents face "extraordinary demands that would tax anybody's physical and mental stamina."

Dr. Barbara Messinger-Rapport, geriatrics chief at the Cleveland Clinic, noted that half of people 85 and older in developed countries have some dementia, usually Alzheimer's. Even without such a disease, "it takes longer to make decisions, it takes longer to learn new things," she said.

But that's far from universal, said Dr. Thomas Perls, an expert on aging at Boston University and director of the New England Centenarians Study.

"Usually a man who is entirely healthy in his early 80s has demonstrated his survival prowess" and can live much longer, he said. People of privilege have better odds because they have access to good food and health care, and tend to lead clean lives.

"Even in the 1500s and 1600s there were popes in their 80s. It's remarkable. That would be today's centenarians," Perls said.

Arizona Sen. John McCain turned 71 while running for president in 2007. Had he won, he would have been the oldest person elected to a first term as president. Ronald Reagan was days away from turning 70 when he started his first term as president in 1981; he won re-election in 1984. Vice President Joe Biden just turned 70.

In the U.S. Senate, where seniority is rewarded and revered, South Carolina's Strom Thurmond didn't retire until age 100 in 2002. Sen. Robert Byrd of West Virginia was the longest-serving senator when he died in office at 92 in 2010.

Now the oldest U.S. senator is 89-year-old Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey. The oldest congressman is Ralph Hall of Texas who turns 90 in May.

The legendary Alan Greenspan was about to turn 80 when he retired as chairman of the Federal Reserve in 2006; he still works as a consultant.

Elsewhere around the world, Cuba's Fidel Castro — one of the world's longest serving heads of state — stepped down in 2006 at age 79 due to an intestinal illness that nearly killed him, handing power to his younger brother Raul. But the island is an example of aged leaders pushing on well into their dotage. Raul Castro now is 81 and his two top lieutenants are also octogenarians. Later this month, he is expected to be named to a new, five-year term as president.

Other leaders who are still working:

—England's Queen Elizabeth, 86.

—Abdullah bin Abd al-Aziz al-Saud, king of Saudi Arabia, 88.

—Sabah al-Ahmad al-Jaber al-Sabah, emir of Kuwait, 83.

—Ruth Bader Ginsburg, U.S. Supreme Court associate justice, 79.

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Associated Press writers Paul Haven in Havana, Cuba; David Rising in Berlin; Seth Borenstein, Mark Sherman and Matt Yancey in Washington, and researcher Judy Ausuebel in New York contributed to this report.

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Marilynn Marchione can be followed at http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP

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Back to New Orleans: Beyonce to perform at Essence

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Beyonce is coming back to New Orleans and back to the Superdome.

After entertaining a huge television audience in a packed dome during the Super Bowl halftime show, Beyonce is now scheduled to perform at the Essence Festival.

Festival officials said Monday that she will return to the dome to headline one of three night concerts during the festival, which is set for the Fourth of July weekend.

Beyonce joins an Essence musical line-up that also includes Jill Scott, Maxwell, New Edition, Charlie Wilson, Keyshia Cole, LL Cool J, Brandy and others.

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