SAN JOSE: Internal emails show that executives at tech companies including Apple and Google believed that a legal contract to avoid poaching each other's workers would bring real financial benefits, a US judge said.
Five former employees of assorted tech companies have filed a civil lawsuit against Apple, Google, Intel as well as others, alleging an illegal conspiracy to reduce competition per other's employees.
At a hearing in San Jose, California federal court, US District Judge Lucy Koh also ordered Apple Leader Tim Cook being questioned by plaintiff attorneys for four hours.
Koh must decide regardless of if the lawsuit can proceed as a class action, which could provide the plaintiffs more leverage to extract a large settlement. Koh asserted right at that moment no-poaching agreements were forged, top executives felt a collective approach toward hiring was better than coping with employees individually.
Five former employees of assorted tech companies have filed a civil lawsuit against Apple, Google, Intel as well as others, alleging an illegal conspiracy to reduce competition per other's employees.
At a hearing in San Jose, California federal court, US District Judge Lucy Koh also ordered Apple Leader Tim Cook being questioned by plaintiff attorneys for four hours.
Koh must decide regardless of if the lawsuit can proceed as a class action, which could provide the plaintiffs more leverage to extract a large settlement. Koh asserted right at that moment no-poaching agreements were forged, top executives felt a collective approach toward hiring was better than coping with employees individually.
"That, I think, is the biggest problem for that defendants," said Koh, who did not identify the executives. However, Koh also closely questioned a vital economic analysis commissioned because of the plaintiffs, that the judge said had "holes."
Koh failed to rule within the class action issue over the hearing on Thursday.
This year, Google, Apple, Adobe Systems, Intel, Intuit and Walt Disney's Pixar unit consented to a settlement of an US Justice Department probe that bars them from agreeing to try to keep from poaching one another's employees.
The Justice Department and California state antitrust regulators then sued eBay late this past year over an alleged no-poaching manage Intuit. eBay said the us government is wrong, and possesses not been named as a defendant inside civil lawsuit.
Plaintiff attorneys have estimated that civil damages potentially could run across poisonous of dollars.
In the court, Adobe attorney Robert Mittelstaedt said the plaintiffs had no evidence that employees were actually depending no-cold call deals.
"It isn't really inside the data," Mittelstaedt said.
In 2007, Apple's Steve Jobs asked former Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt to stop seeking to recruit an Apple engineer, a transgression that threatened one junior Google employee's job, in accordance with a court filing this past year. Right at that moment, Schmidt was an Apple board member.
Koh criticized attorneys for your tech companies internet marketing not fast enough to schedule depositions of top executives. Apple attorney George Riley tried to spare Cook at a deposition, stating that when Cook was chief executive officer (COO) on the heart.} company before succeeding Jobs in 2011, Cook had no role in any of the no-hire agreements.
"I still find it difficult to believe a COO could have no say over salary and compensation for all those employees," Koh responded.
Additionally, Google attorneys agreed that Schmidt, now Google's executive chairman, could possibly be questioned by plaintiffs' lawyers last month 20. Executives from the 3 other programs were also scheduled for depositions, including Intel leader Paul Otellini.
True in US District Court, Northern District of California was in Re: High-Tech Employee Antitrust Litigation, 11-cv-2509.
Share your views
