A recent Thomson Reuters story, “Apple, Google, Intel, Adobe to Pay $325 Million to Settle Hiring Lawsuit,” reports that four major Silicon Valley companies have formally agreed to pay $324.5 million to settle claims brought by employees who accused them of limiting competition by colluding not to poach each other’s talent. The settlement, between Apple Inc., Google Inc., Intel Corp., Adobe Systems Inc. and roughly 64,000 workers, was disclosed in papers filed late Thursday with a federal court in San Jose.
Filed in 2011, the suit accused Silicon Valley companies of conspiring to limit competition and keep wages down for engineers, programmers and other technical staff. The case has been closely watched because of the potential $9 billion in damages sought. The companies combined profit in their latest fiscal years was about $60 billion, with three-fifths coming from Apple.
Lawyers for the plaintiffs may seek up to $81 million in attorney fees or 25 percent of the settlement amount. 25 percent is the fee benchmark set by the Ninth Circuit. Joseph Saveri, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said “The fees are consistent with the workload and the risk we took.” Click here (pdf) for plaintiffs' lawyers notice of fee request.
U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh has been asked to preliminarily approve the accord at a June 19 hearing, over the objection by one of the four named plaintiffs, Michael Devine, who says the settlement let the companies off too easily. In court papers, two law firms representing the plaintiffs said Devine’s objection should not doom what they consider a fair and reasonable settlement for an antitrust case, and which serves the best interests of the class.
They pointed to a July 2012 jury verdict in the same court that found Toshiba Corp conspired to fix prices in the liquid crystal display market but awarded just $87 million in damages, one-tenth of what was sought. “The amount of the settlement does not relate to the size or profitability of the companies we sued,” Saveri said. “It relates to the claims we made, the law that applies to them, and the facts that we could prove at trial. Based on that, I think the settlement is a significant achievement.”
The case in U.S. District Court, Northern District of California is In Re: High-Tech Employee Antitrust Litigation, 11-02509.
For more on this settlement, visit https://www.hightechemployeelawsuit.com/