Apple, Google Agree To Settle Lawsuit Alleging Hiring Conspiracy

An anonymous reader writes "A group of tech companies including Google and Apple have agreed to settle an antitrust lawsuit over no-hire agreements in Silicon Valley. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. From the article: 'Tech workers filed a class action lawsuit against Apple Inc, Google Inc, Intel Inc and Adobe Systems Inc in 2011, alleging they conspired to refrain from soliciting one another's employees in order to avert a salary war. Trial had been scheduled to begin at the end of May on behalf of roughly 64,000 workers in the class.'"

Re:Settled.

[pepty]

One type of tort reform I would really like to see is parity in rewards between attorneys and the class in class action suits.

1. Parity in time. Lawyers don't get paid til the class gets paid. If it's a medical case and the payout is a trust to pay off medical claims over decades, then the lawyers get paid fractionally as those medical claims are paid. If the lawyers want their money right now they are free to securitize that revenue stream and sell it, probably for 65 cents on the dollar.

2. Parity in kind. If the class receives coupons, services, or goods then the lawyers receive their payment in the same coupons, services or goods. If the lawyers would prefer cash they had better settle for cash; otherwise they can sell their coupons on Ebay for pennies on the dollar.

3. Parity in proportion: The class receives a minimum of 50% of the settlement. Distribution costs don't count toward that 50%.

The story behind the smiley...

[marciot]

"In one email exchange after a Google recruiter solicited an Apple employee, Schmidt told Jobs that the recruiter would be fired, court documents show. Jobs then forwarded Schmidt's note to a top Apple human resources executive with a smiley face."

The story behind the smiley face is that Steve Jobs now knew exactly what disgruntled ex-recruiter he could hire to solicit Google employees on behalf of Apple.

Re:On the subject of collusion

[litehacksaur111]

Then why do professional athletes, physicians, pharmacists, lawyers, etc have unions or occupation specific associations. It seems that IT workers think they are too smart to join a union or they are so super concerned that 1 person might freeload off their contract, so they are ready to spite their face to save their nose.

Re:terms not disclosed

[rhizome]

I'd say that's a max. Class representatives Lieff Cabraser thankfully has a history of this kind of defendant-friendly incompetence. Note their role in the settlement in the California Hospital Price Gouging [wikipedia.org] case, where the class received about $1,000 apiece in what should have also involved criminal charges.

Do the math: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lieff_Cabraser_Heimann_%26_Bernstein#Prominent_Cases [wikipedia.org]