According to a filing in a San Jose, California federal court, companies Apple Inc, Google Inc, Intel Corp and Adobe Systems Inc have settled claims of collusion to cap technical workers' pay in a $324.5 million lawsuit. The lawyers representing the affected employees who have sued some of the biggest firms in Silicon Valley are seeking for a preliminary approval of the accord by a judge. The accord, which was reached on April 24, covered over 64,000 technical employees. It was noted that terms of the accord were disclosed in the filing.
Bloomberg noted that under federal antitrust law, complainants could have won triple the amount of damages if the case had went on trial. Arguments for the case, which started in 2011, was expected to be heard at a trial scheduled for May 27 prior to the accord. The amount of the settlement equates to just 0.4% of the companies' latest combined quarterly revenue and only 1/10th of the $3 billion the employees were looking to win if the trial had gone through.
The case, the news agency said, had been an embarrassment for Silicon Valley, as it exposed the brokering among top executives at the expense of their employees. Emails and court documents had painted unflattering sides of tech luminaries, which include Steve Jobs, co-founder of Cupertino, California-based Apple, and Eric Schmidt, chairman of Mountain View, California-based Google. In one conversation that was cited in a court ruling, Jobs had then threatened war on Google co-founder Sergey Brin if the latter's company would hire any of Apple's workers.
The terms of the settlement would have the companies deposit a millon dollars into an escrow account within 10 days from the time a preliminary court approval was obtained, according to the court filing. The remainder will be deposited within seven days after it had obtained a final court approval. The accord will also relieve all companies from future claims s well. From the amount, lawyers will get as high as 25% in attorneys' fees plus expenses amounting up to $1.2 million. Plaintiffs who have served as class representative will be given an extra award of $80,000.
