Bromwich: Apple’s antitrust monitor.
FORTUNE — On Wednesday the U.S. government lawyers who prosecuted — and won — the e-book antitrust trial against Apple (AAPL) got the external antitrust compliance monitor they asked for.
What they didn’t get was the monitoring they wanted — and Apple’s lawyers feared — by an outsider with broad powers to block any agreements the company might make to sell any digital content (e-books, music, movies, television shows etc. ) that were, in the monitor’s eyes, likely to increase prices.
What they got instead was a court-appointed monitor whose purview is limited to e-books and whose main job is supervising Apple’s own antitrust compliance training program.
In the order that U.S. District Judge Denise Cote issued Wednesday, two monitors were named: One well-versed in antitrust law and the other with little antitrust experience but a long track record of supervising complex investigations.
Michael Bromwich is the attorney without an antitrust background, and he’s the one U.S. District Judge Denise Cote put in charge. Among his prior assignments: Investigating the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, probing the FBI’s conduct in the Aldrich Ames case and, at President Obama’s request, running the newly created Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
Nigro.
Bromwich will be assisted by Bernard Nigro, the chair of the antitrust department at Fried Frank. Barry’s the guy who knows the ins and outs of antitrust law.
Bromwich has the court’s permission to hire as many people as he needs to do the job.
Apple, which had the right to object to the appointments, gets to foot the bill.
