Four Tech Giants Incl. Apple To Pay $415 Mln To Settle Antitrust Hiring Case

(RTTNews) - Four technology companies in the Silicon Valley agreed to pay 64,000 current and former employees $415 million to settle a class-action suit related to violation of antitrust laws on poaching each other's employees.

The lawsuit alleged that Apple Inc. (AAPL) and Google, Inc. (GOOG, GOGL) Intel Corp. (INTC) and Adobe Systems Inc. (ADBE) conspired not to hire each others employees, a move that will not provide the employees the bargaining power for an increase in wages.

The class-action was bought up in 2011 by about 64,000 current and former employees. The trial was scheduled to begin on April 10.

The case was primarily filed based of emails of late Apple's co-founder Steve Jobs, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt and some others that revealed plans to avoid hiring each others prized employees.

An earlier $324.5 million settlement reached by the parties in August 2014 was rejected by U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh in San Jose, California as one of the Adobe employees objected to it as being too low. Koh was seen urging to hike the settlement to at least $380 million in order to match an earlier settlement.