US: Companies fight for $325M non-poaching settlement offer

Top Silicon Valley technology companies are fighting to have their settlement approved that would end litigation against them for allegedly colluding to not hire each other’s employees.

Apple, Google, Intel and Adobe have filed to have an appeals court intervene on their behalf to have a $325 million settlement offer approved after US District Judge Lucy Koh slammed the proposal as inadequate last month.

The companies issued a filing late last week to the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals, asking the court to overturn Judge Koh’s rejection of the settlement, arguing that she “committed clear legal error” and “impermissibly substituted the court’s assessment of the value of the case for that of the parties who have been litigating the case for more than three years,” say reports.

The class action on behalf of thousands of tech employees was filed against the firms accusing them of colluding to strike non-poaching agreements between each other, artificially keeping wages low, the plaintiffs said.

Full content: KDAL610

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