Google (Photo : Reuters)
Google, Apple, Intel and Adobe offered $415 million to settle the case where the companies were accused of not hiring workers from each other, Computer World reported.
The initial offer was $324.5 million, which was dismissed as too low by San Jose district court judge. The companies increased it to $415 million to end the case if the plaintiffs and the judge approve the amount.
The no-hire rule of the four multinational companies allegedly decreased the income and career opportunities for mostly engineers and tech-workers. The claims that came from the company's former employees were investigated by the United States Department of Justice.
There were evidences found about secret agreements between the four companies but the court decided not to impose sanctions as long as all contacts and agreement will be ended. After that, the employees decided to sue the executives and thus the $324.5 million was offered by the companies.
The said no-hire rule was allegedly initiated by the late Steve Jobs from Apple. Jobs was reportedly dismayed with the number of resigned employees and the amount of money to keep them on the company. The Apple founder approached Google's executive chairman Eric Schmidt to start the no-hire deal.
Emails were revealed as evidences to the alleged conspiracy. However, there were several companies who turned down Job's offer despite alleged threats such as Palm chief executive Ed Colligan. Facebook also revealed that they did not join in on the illegal agreement.
Aside from the four giant companies, Ebay was involved in a similar case but settled the charges last year. Pixar, Intuit and Lucasfilm also faced a similar charge and settled it for $20 million. An employee from Intuit complained that he only received $1000, which is not even enough for a Caribbean vacation, New York Times reported.
As of this time, only Intel has released an official statement saying that they deny the allegations but they chose to settle to keep away from the burden of an ongoing case.
Google and Apple declined the request for a statement while Adobe failed to respond to the request.
