The European Commission has begun formal antitrust proceedings to determine whether five major international publishers (five of the big six U.S. houses) and Apple have "engaged in anti-competitive practices affecting the sale of e-books." The focus of the inquiry is agency pricing, which Apple has required for selling books on iBookstore, and which has been adopted in the U.S. by the five publishers named--Hachette, HarperCollins, Penguin, Simon & Schuster and Holtzbrinck--as well as Random House for all e-book sales here.
Under the agency plan, usually the publisher determines the price of the e-book and the retailer, acting as a selling agent, takes a 30% share of the sale. The agency plan has been fiercely fought by Amazon and widely applauded by many independent booksellers and others in the industry who fear that bargain basement prices for e-books will harm the industry.