April 19 (Reuters) - Apple Inc, Google Inc, Intel Corp and
four other technology companies were ordered by a judge to face
an antitrust lawsuit claiming they illegally conspired not to
poach each other's employees.
U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh in San Jose, California,
rejected the companies' bid to dismiss claims brought under the
federal Sherman antitrust law and California's own antitrust
law, the Cartwright Act.
In a decision on Wednesday night, Koh said the existence of
"Do Not Cold Call" agreements among various defendants "supports
the plausible inference that the agreements were negotiated,
reached, and policed at the highest levels" of the companies.
"The fact that all six identical bilateral agreements were
reached in secrecy among seven defendants in a span of two years
suggests that these agreements resulted from collusion, and not
from coincidence," Koh added.
Other defendants in the case included Adobe Systems Inc,
Intuit Inc, Walt Disney Co's Pixar unit and Lucasfilm Ltd. Koh
dismissed a claim brought under California's unfair competition
law.
Lawyers for the defendants were not immediately available
for comment.
The proposed class-action lawsuit was brought by five
software engineers who accused the companies of conspiring to
limit pay and job mobility by eliminating competition for labor,
costing workers hundreds of millions of dollars.
Their claims are similar to those raised in 2010 by the U.S.
Department of Justice when it settled antitrust probes against
the companies.
Without admitting wrongdoing, the companies agreed not to
take steps to restrict competition for workers, including
setting limits on cold-calling and recruiting.
Among the revelations stemming from the litigation was a
2007 email trail involving the late Steve Jobs and Eric Schmidt,
then respectively Apple's and Google's chief executives, over
Google's apparent effort to recruit an Apple engineer.
"I would be very pleased if your recruiting department would
stop doing this," Jobs wrote Schmidt, an Apple director at the
time.
Schmidt forwarded that email to various people, asking if
they could "get this stopped."
Eventually, Google's staffing director said the employee who
recruited the engineer would be fired, and added: "Please extend
my apologies as appropriate to Steve Jobs."
Joseph Saveri, a lawyer for the five plaintiff engineers,
said their case remains on track for a June 2013 trial.
"This is a significant step forward," Saveri said in an
email.
All of the defendants are based in California: Adobe in San
Jose; Apple in Cupertino; Google and Intuit in Mountain View;
Intel in Santa Clara; Lucasfilm in San Francisco; and Pixar in
Emeryville. Walt Disney is based in Burbank.
The case is In re: High-Tech Employee Antitrust Litigation,
U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, No.
11-02509.
For Adobe: David Kiernam of Jones Day.
For Apple: Michael Tubach of O'Melveny & Myers.
For Google: Lee Rubin of Mayer Brown.
For Intel: Donn Pickett of Bingham McCutchen.
For Intuit: Robert Mittelstaedt of Jones Day.
For Lucasfilm: Daniel Purcell of keker & Van Nest.
For Pixar: Emily Johnson Henn of Covington & Burling.
(Reporting By Jonathan Stempel)
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