The European Commission will accept the five firms’ proposal regarding their pricing agreements for e-books and formally announce the accord in December, Reuters reported Tuesday.

However, Brussels said the matter is still open. “We have launched a market test in September and our investigation is still ongoing,” Antoine Colombani, spokesman for Joaquín Alumnia, the European competition commissioner, told Delano on Wednesday. “The commission has not reached a decision yet.”

Last December the commission, along with US competition authorities, opened an investigation to see if the firms had illegally conspired to raise the retail price of e-books and prevent competitors from offering lower prices.

Apple’s contracts with the publishers had changed from the “wholesale model”--in which books were sold to retailers who then determined their own price--to the “agency model” with so-called “most favoured nation” clauses--in which prices are set across the board for all retail outlets, with no seller allowed to deviate from the arranged amount.

That means competitors such as Amazon cannot offer lower prices on the titles.

Apple and the four publishing companies started negotiations with the commission this spring. Under the proposed deal, all “agency” contracts would be cancelled and none would be signed for the next five years. Any future agency agreements would allow retailers to offer some discounts.

In September, the commission opened a public comment period that ended October 19.

Brussels “has not asked for more concessions” from Apple and the publishers, according to one of Reuters’ two sources. “The commission is likely to accept the offer and announce its decision next month,” the news agency quotes the source as saying.

The four publishers are Hachette Livre, part of France’s Lagardere Publishing; Harper Collins, owned by US-based News Corp.; Macmillan, part of Germany’s Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck; and New York-based CBS Corp.’s Simon & Schuster.

British publisher Pearson’s Penguin brand is also part of Brussels’ investigation but is not participating in the proposed settlement negotiations.

Cross-border e-book sales are an emerging part of Luxembourg’s economy. To promote the sector, last year the Grand Duchy’s government lowered the VAT from 15 to three percent. But in October the European Commission ordered Luxembourg’s government to restore the higher rate.