Apple, Google Increase Anti-Poaching Class Action Settlement to $415M

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On Jan. 15, Google Inc., Apple Inc., Intel Corp., and Adobe Systems Inc. informed a federal judge that they have agreed to an anti-poaching class action settlement to resolve claims that these companies had allegedly agreed to not hire each other’s employees, an alleged violation of U.S. anti-trust laws. In total, the companies will pay a combined class action settlement of $415 million, about $90.5 million more than the original anti-poaching class action settlement proposed by the companies and later rejected by a California federal judge.

In August 2014, U.S. District Judge Lucy H. Koh rejected the originally proposed anti-poaching class action settlement, which offered $324.5 million to establish a settlement fund, stating the that proposed amount was $55 million too low. Additionally, the judge reasoned that the Anti-Poaching Class Members would have recovered less from the rejected settlement when compared to similar anti-poaching deals made with Intuit, Lucasfilm, and Pixar the year prior. Google, Apple, Intel, and Adobe attempted to overturn Judge Koh’s ruling, but a new anti-poaching class action settlement was reached before then.

The tech giants have denied all liability in this anti-poaching class action lawsuit, but have “elected to settle the matter in order to avoid the risk, burdens and uncertainty of ongoing litigation.” If this latest anti-poaching settlement is given final approval, it will resolve claims that Google, Apple, Intel, and Adobe stifled software engineer’s pay in the wake of secretly agreeing not to “poach” each other’s software employees. The anti-poaching practices came to light because of an investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice surrounding the Silicon Valley technology companies’ hiring practices.

The proposed anti-poaching class action settlement will provide relief and compensatory damages to a Class of:

“All natural persons who work in the technical, creative, and/or research and development fields that were employed on a salaried basis in the United States by one or more of the following: (a) Adobe from May 2005 through December 2009; (b) Apple from March 2005 through December 2009; (c) Google from March 2005 through December 2009; (d) Intel from March 2005 through December 2009; (e) Intuit from June 2007 through December 2009; (f) Lucasfilm from January 2005 through December 2009; or (g) Pixar from January 2005 through December 2009.”

In 2011, a group of software engineers filed this anti-poaching class action lawsuit against Apple, Google, Intel, Adobe and other companies housed in the Silicon Valley seeking damages for allegations that the tech companies agreed to inform one another when one of the companies made an offer of employment to an employee from another company.

In this same alleged anti-poaching agreement agreed to restrict pay packages for prospective employees to avoid bidding wars and prevent each other from recruiting on another’s employees, especially software engineers. According to the plaintiffs’ anti-poaching class action lawsuit, this alleged agreement decreased tech workers’ pay 10 to 15 percent lower than what would be expected from natural job market conditions.

The plaintiffs are represented by Kelly M. Dermody, Richard M. Heimann, Brendan P. Glackin, Dean M. Harvey and Anne B. Shaver of Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein LLP; and Joseph R. Saveri, James G. Dallal and Andrew M. Purdy of Joseph Saveri Law Firm Inc.

The Anti-Poaching Class Action Lawsuit is In re: High-Tech Employee Antitrust Litigation, Case No. 5:11-cv-02509, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.

UPDATE: The high-tech employee class action settlement has paid out! Checks were mailed the week of December 21, 2015. If you received a check, let us know in the comments. Congrats to everyone who got paid!