Apple wants trial on e-book price-fixing: lawyer

Apple wants to go to trial to defend itself against U.S. government allegations that it conspired with publishers to raise prices of electronic books, a lawyer for the company said in court. Macmillan, a unit of Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck GmbH, and Pearson Plc's Penguin Group took a similar stance in the first hearing in Manhattan federal court since the anti-trust division of the Department of Justice last week accused Apple and five publishers of colluding to break up Amazon's low-cost dominance of the digital book market.

The judge scheduled the next hearing for June 22. The court also heard that 15 U.S. states and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico were in settlement talks with the three publishers. If all 50 states were ultimately to settle, it would have an impact on a separate class action brought by consumers, a HarperCollins lawyer, Shepard Goldfein, told the judge.