Media reports point out that the well-known names of the tech business are now facing a class action over what is called a trade cartel to control employee movements. Recently, the US judge Lucy Koh has opened the way for a class action lawsuit against such tech giants as Intel, Adobe, Apple, Google, Pixar, Lucasfilm and Intuit.
Lucy Koh pointed out that there was enough evidence of a sustained personal effort by the above mentioned companies’ own CEOs to monitor and enforce no headhunting rules on their workers. The judge named and shamed Apple chief executive Steve Jobs, Google’s Eric Schmidt, Pixar President Ed Catmull, Intuit Chairman Bill Campbell and Intel CEO Paul Otellini. Koh recommended the lawyers for the plaintiffs to restructure their case against the multinational corporations and re-file it in order to instigate a major class-action suit. Once they are done with this, the judge will hear it.
In the meanwhile, the plaintiffs’ lawyers are hoping that 100,000 employees of the defendant corporations will become their clients. However, it is not as if the tech firms aren’t aware that something is afoot – instead, they have already settled similar antitrust claims against them with the Department of Justice of the United States. This could cost them a fortune and force the defendants to start regarding their employees as people rather than objects.
In the event that the case is proved, it will mean that the corporations ran some secret agreement not to poach each other’s employees and to stop their experts defecting to other companies. Such agreement, if existed, could save the tech companies a fortune, because they didn’t have to pay extra money to keep employees who had no alternatives.
Lucy Koh pointed out that there was enough evidence of a sustained personal effort by the above mentioned companies’ own CEOs to monitor and enforce no headhunting rules on their workers. The judge named and shamed Apple chief executive Steve Jobs, Google’s Eric Schmidt, Pixar President Ed Catmull, Intuit Chairman Bill Campbell and Intel CEO Paul Otellini. Koh recommended the lawyers for the plaintiffs to restructure their case against the multinational corporations and re-file it in order to instigate a major class-action suit. Once they are done with this, the judge will hear it.
In the meanwhile, the plaintiffs’ lawyers are hoping that 100,000 employees of the defendant corporations will become their clients. However, it is not as if the tech firms aren’t aware that something is afoot – instead, they have already settled similar antitrust claims against them with the Department of Justice of the United States. This could cost them a fortune and force the defendants to start regarding their employees as people rather than objects.
In the event that the case is proved, it will mean that the corporations ran some secret agreement not to poach each other’s employees and to stop their experts defecting to other companies. Such agreement, if existed, could save the tech companies a fortune, because they didn’t have to pay extra money to keep employees who had no alternatives.
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