Apple and several major publishers were accused by the US government of conspiring to fix prices of e-books and limit retail price competition, according to a lawsuit filed on Wednesday.

"Apple facilitated the publisher defendants' collective effort to end retail price competition by coordinating their transition to an agency model across all retailers," according to the complaint, filed in Manhattan federal court by the anti-trust division of the US Department of Justice.

The publishers include Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins, MacMillan, Penguin Group, Pearson and Simon & Schuster, a unit of CBS Corp.  - Reuters