Apple CEO Tim Cook has been summoned by the U.S. Department of Justice to testify in the price-fixing case.

Early in 2012, Apple along with five major publishing houses was accused of fixing the price of e-books. While all five publishing houses have come to a settlement with the DOJ, Apple is the last company left in the case. According to a report by News Day, the CEO of Apple Tim Cook has been summoned by the U.S. Department of Justice to testify in the price-fixing case.

The Department of Justice has requested Cook to be put on the stand for four hours during the trial and the U.S. District Judge Denise Cote has agreed. The trial is scheduled to begin June 2013. Cook will be asked questions about the company's entrance into the e-book world in the absence of Steve Jobs who was the CEO then. Jobs passed away October 2011, after which Cook took over.

According to a news report by Tech Radar, the DOJ is interested in knowing what Jobs had told Cook about the e-book issue, as Cook was reportedly close to Jobs and was also serving as Apple's chief financial officer.

Judge Cote said she has agreed to the DOJ's request because she feels that after Job's death, the government is entitled to "take testimony from high-level executives within Apple about topics relevant to the government case."

Apple, however, did not approve of the request, calling it a "fishing expedition." According to Apple's lawyer Orin Snyder, this request from the DOJ shows its incapability to meet its burden of proof in the case against the company.

In April 2012, five publishing houses - Macmillan, Penguin, HarperCollins, Hachette and Simon & Schuster entered into a deal with Apple to create what was called the agency model, which allowed these publishing houses to raise the price of their e-books by up to $3. Under this deal, Apple would receive 30 percent of all sales made from e-books purchased in their iBookstore. Also, these five publishing houses would not let any other retailer sell e-books at a price lesser than available at the iBookstore. Through this deal, the publishers, and not the retailers, would have the power to fix the price of their e-books. The reason for this deal, the 6 companies cited was, because they disapproved of Amazon fixing all e-book prices sold through them at $9.99.