Facebook’s stock is tumbling well below its $38 IPO price in the social network’s second day of trading as a public company on Monday. Facebook’s stock closed at $34.03, down 11 percent from Friday’s closing price of $38.23.BRUSSELS – The European Union’s antitrust watchdog is probing whether Apple helped five publishing houses illegally raise prices for e-books when it launched its iPad tablet and iBookstore in 2010.
The inquiry, announced Tuesday by the European Commission, offers a glimpse into the fierce fight for share of the growing e-book market as Apple tries to take on Amazon and its Kindle e-book reader.
It also highlights the struggle for profits between retailers and publishers, as more and more readers download books electronically.
In particular, the European Commission is investigating a significant shift in the way the price of e-books is determined that occurred in 2010, just as the Cupertino, Calif.-based Apple introduced the iPad and its own online bookshop, iBookstore.
Apple was the first retailer to allow publishers to move to so-called agency agreements, which let publishers set the price that online bookshops sell e-books to consumers.
Until then, publishers were able to set the wholesale price of e-books, while retailers decided what price to sell them on to readers.
“The commission has concerns that these practices may breach EU antitrust rules that prohibit cartels and restrictive business practices,” the regulator said in a statement.
Giving publishers the power to set retail prices could effectively restrict competition between online bookshops, since it takes away the individual retailers’ powers to set lower prices. Since Apple’s deal with the publishers, several other online retailers have also shifted to the agency model, possibly in an attempt to secure the rights to sell popular e-books.
