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The plaintiffs alleged that Apple Inc, Google
Inc, Intel Corp and Adobe Systems Inc agreed to avoid poaching
each other's employees, thus limiting job mobility and, as a
result, keeping a lid on salaries.
The antitrust class action lawsuit was filed in 2011. It has
been closely watched because of the possibility that big damages
might be awarded and for the opportunity to peek into the world
of some of the United States' elite tech firms.
The case was based largely on emails in which Apple co-founder
Steve Jobs, former Google Chief Executive Officer Eric Schmidt
and some of their rivals detailed plans to avoid poaching each
other's prized engineers.
U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh in San Jose, California has
scheduled a hearing for Monday to decide whether to give the new
deal preliminary approval.
Last August, she rejected the previous $324.5 million agreement
after one of the plaintiffs objected. That worker supports the
new deal, his attorney has said.
In rejecting the $324.5 million deal, Koh repeatedly referred to
a related 2013 settlement involving the Walt Disney Co and
Intuit Inc. Apple and Google workers got proportionally less
than Disney workers, Koh wrote, even though plaintiff lawyers
had "much more leverage" against Apple and Google.
To match the earlier settlement, the deal with Apple, Google,
Intel and Adobe "would need to total at least $380 million," Koh
wrote.
Among the arguments in favor of the new settlement, plaintiff
attorneys have argued that the risks of trial are very high and
pointed to a December verdict in favor of Apple on antitrust
claims over its iPod digital music players. That case had been
litigated for 10 years, and the plaintiffs received nothing.
The hiring case is In Re: High-Tech Employee Antitrust
Litigation, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California
11-cv-2509.
(Editing by Jonathan Oatis)
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