UPDATE-Second Bite of Apple, Court Approves $415 million High-Tech Giants Wage-Fixing Settlement
As discussed in my initial blog post on the topic, Google, Apple, Intel and Adobe stand accused of conspiring not to poach one another’s employees in order to keep wages down. And as discussed in my update, the Court rejected a proposed $324 million settlement as too low.
At the earlier hearing, one of the plaintiff’s objected and the Court agreed that the settlement was too low. At the most recent hearing there was no objection and the Court appeared to approve the settlement. However, there is still disagreement among the various plaintiffs and their respective counsel regarding allocation of the settlement. While it appears that the size of the pie has been decided, there question of how big the pieces will be is on the table.
The lessons for the defendants are (1) don’t conspire with your competitors not to poach one another’s employees and (2) don’t be dumb enough to refer to such conspiracies in writing.