The European Commission wants input on commitments offered...

as those by Simon & Schuster, Harper Collins, Hachette and Holtzbrinck, which were made legally binding in December, the EC said. The four publishers and Apple may have violated EU antitrust rules by jointly switching the sale of e-books from a wholesale model to agency contracts containing the same key terms, including an “unusual so-called ‘Most Favoured Nation’ (MFN)” clause for retail prices, the EC said. The agency model gives publishers more control over retail prices, it said. The EC believes the change may have resulted from collusion among competing publishers, with Apple’s help, may have been intended to hike retail prices of e-books in the European Economic Area or prevent lower prices from emerging, it said. Penguin has offered to terminate existing agency agreements and refrain from adopting price MFN provisions for five years, the EC said. If the publisher enters into new agency agreements, retailers will be free to set e-book prices for two years, provided the aggregate value of price discounts doesn’t exceed the total annual amount of the commissions the seller receives from the publisher, it said. If the market test shows that Penguin’s commitments are suitable to address EU antitrust concerns, the EC may make them binding, it said. Interested parties have one month to submit comments.