The technology industry is a cut throat world where everyone needs to have an edge to stay ahead. Over the past 5 years the big tech companies have had many a court battle where they accused each other of patent infringement, competition law breaking and various other legal skirmishes. Now though it seems like they are facing an attack from a different source, their own employees.
A federal judge has tentatively approved a settlement amount of $415 million put forward by Apple, Google, Adobe, Intel, and other Silicon Valley companies over employee-hiring practices. A few years ago these companies adopted a “no-poaching” clause into their employee contracts in an effort to keep intellectual property out of their competitors hands. Unfortunately for the employees this allowed the tech companies to set and limit wages.
Judge Lucy Koh rejected the first proposed settlement, worth $324 million, in August last year, saying that it wasn’t high enough to make up for the lost wages employees may have suffered after the companies involved in the case.
Koh signed off on the latest deal after the companies involved in the case “” including Pixar, Lucasfilm, and Intuit “” agreed to increase the amount they paid in compensation. In August 2014, she had suggested that the companies involved bump the figure up to at least $380 million, saying that there was “ample evidence of an overarching conspiracy” between the companies.
All companies involved now have three months to submit final comments before the judge grants final approval on the settlement on June 9th.
Source: TheVerge
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