This Wall Street Journal editorial may be under a paywall or registration for some readers, but its highlight comes in its headline: settlement monitor Richard Bromwich, appointed by a federal judge in 2013 to oversee Apple, “bills for reading our editorials.” More on settlement monitors at our tag; more on Apple and antitrust.
2 Comments
I wouldn’t read Wall Street Journal editorials without being paid a big fee, either.
“But this option exposes how unusual the Bromwich-Cote arrangement really is. The judicial power under the Constitution is to decide cases and controversies, not to inspect a business’s private operations and exercise investigative powers reserved for prosecutors.”
But how is this different from what happens in with natural people on probation and parole all the time? After being found guilty of crimes, people are routinely subject to years of intrusive monitoring from home visits to drug tests. It’s not uncommon for those under monitoring (who typically don’t have Apple-sized bank accounts) to be subject to huge fees for these services, especially when private probation companies are involved.
After having been found to have violated the law, the court has imposed a monitor to ensure Apple doesn’t do it again. It’s not remotely unreasonable that said monitor might insist on meeting with senior executives or want to impose more rigorous structures to ensure compliance in the corporate hierarchy.