I don't know if publishing companies (or even book sellers, like Borders) have attempted this in the past, but this article (and the article it links to) lays o

I don't know if publishing companies (or even book sellers, like Borders) have attempted this in the past, but this article (and the article it links to) lays out a pretty fair case for predatory pricing (sometimes referred to as "dumping") which is when a business attempts to root out competitors by selling below cost and then (hypothetically), when its competitors are out of the market, raises the price above competitive levels. This is generally illegal under the Sherman Act (antitrust law) in the United States (and likely in other countries, too), although, unfortunately, it is quite difficult to succeed on these sorts of claims in the US, most notably because, while a company is engaging in predatory pricing, consumers are better off since they are paying less (and a fair number of economists don’t believe that predatory pricing is rational or even possible to work for various reasons). Still, there are remedies for companies that engage in this behavior--maybe they'll come too late to save small publishers in this case, but they exist.