Apple and Google Increase No Poaching Lawsuit Settlement

The employee class action lawsuit against Apple, Google, Intel, Adobe and other Silicon Valley tech companies is nearing settlement. The judge approved an increase in the employee damages from $324 million to $415 million. This represents compensation lost by employees who were not hired away by one of the companies from another company because of a secret agreement between them to avoid competition for existing employees. The companies secretly agreed to not “poach” each other’s employees, because they were unhappy with employees leaving for better jobs at their competitors. Of course, this competition for employees is the very policy that the State of California constitutional ban on employment non-compete agreements is designed to promote. See my Newsletters 1, 5 and 6 for more information.

Originally published at https://charleshmartin.com.