Judge Approves $415 Million Settlement in Tech Companies Anti-Poaching Suit

Last Wednesday, September 2, 2015, U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh approved a settlement that requires Silicon Valley tech companies Google, Apple, Intel, and Adobe to pay out $415 million to employees in an anti-poaching lawsuit.

Plaintiffs in the class action claimed that executives at the tech companies conspired with each other to hinder the job mobility of their most talented engineers, designers, analysts, and other professionals, thus stifling any attempts for those employees to earn higher salaries. In support of their allegations, the plaintiffs proffered a series of email exchanges in 2007 between Apple’s former CEO, Steve Jobs, and former Google CEO, Eric Schmidt, in which the two agreed to stop recruiting from each other’s top engineer employee pool.

The class of nearly 64,500 employees sought $3 billion in damages, which would have allowed each employee to receive more than $100,000. Nevertheless, last year the parties reached an agreement to resolve the case for $324.5 million, or approximately $5,000 per class member, but Judge Lucy Koh of the Northern District of California, tossed out the settlement as inadequate. Thereafter, the tech companies submitted to the court a proposal for a resolution of $415 million, which was approved.

From the settlement, nearly $41 million will be paid in attorneys’ fees, which is less than half of the $85 million that plaintiffs’ attorneys requested. Judge Koh denied the request because it would be too much of a “windfall” for the attorneys involved. The remaining portion due to plaintiffs will be paid according to the individual employee’s base salary between 2005 and 2009.

The case is: In Re: High-Tech Employee Antitrust Litigation, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California 11-cv-2509.

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