Apple settles anti-trust lawsuit

Join Google, Intel, and Adobe in $415 million settlement

Apple has come to a collective agreement and settlement with Google, Intel, and Adobe to settle a $415 million anti-trust lawsuit with employees of each company concerning the way that they hire employees. The companies complained that each were poaching each others workers and offering bigger salaries in order to undermine the competition. The lawsuit requires that each company stop the practice of hiring and poaching employees plus the monetary compensation.

A settlement was actually made back in the early part of 2014 with the plantiffs but they turned down the reported $324.5 million offer. The new settlement was actually made and filed in federal court on Tuesday and now it has to be approved by a judge. The new agreement was reported in the New York Times. The Times also reported that there are 64,000 people who are plantiffs in the suit and they would probably get about $1,000 each, with the rest of the settlement monies going to pay off the representing lawyers.

The lawsuit involving Apple, Google, Intel, and Adobe was one that was four years in the making. The original suit was dismissed by District Court Judge Lucy Koh because she thought that the $324.5 million was too low and that it would not be enough to compensate the affected workers. The case was first brought to light by Steve Jobs when he asked Google’s Eric Schmidt and Intel’s Paul Otellini to stop poaching and trying to recruit employees. The settlement still needs to be approved by the judge. At the current moment there has not been any official statement from either of the companies as to a reaction to the lawsuit. There have also been reports of the settlement being published online which will tell the exact details of the lawsuit.

Source: theverge