“A US judge on Friday offered a behind-the-scenes look at the force of will with which Steve Jobs once held sway over Silicon Valley, as she threw out a proposed settlement of a lawsuit against Apple and three other tech companies,” Richard Waters reports for The Financial Times. “‘There is compelling evidence that Steve Jobs… was a, if not the, central figure in the alleged conspiracy,’ Judge Lucy Koh wrote as she rejected a $324.5m settlement.”
“In all, seven tech companies have faced charges that they agreed not to poach each others’ workers, though three of them have already settled,” Waters reports. “According to Judge Koh, the series of secret pacts began when Mr Jobs reached a no-poaching deal for Pixar, the animation studio he controlled, with George Lucas, head of Lucasfilm. That became the model for agreements with other companies, with ‘fear of and deference to’ Mr Jobs a big reason for the willingness of others to join in the alleged conspiracy, the judge added.”
Read more in the full article here.
Related articles:
Judge Lucy Koh shoots down Apple, Google, Intel wage cartel settlement – August 11, 2014
Judge Koh says she’s concerned about Apple, Google anti-poaching settlement – June 20, 2014
Plaintiff blasts Apple, Google, Adobe, Intel settlement deal in Silicon Valley poaching case – May 12, 2014
Apple, Google, Intel, Adobe settle antitrust hiring case for $324 million – April 24, 2014
Apple, Google, other firms could pay ‘blindingly high’ $9 billion in anti-poaching suit – April 8, 2014
A whiff of settlement in Silicon Valley anti-poaching case – March 28, 2014
Steve Jobs wasn’t okay with Google hiring even former Apple engineers – March 27, 2014
Judge Koh: 60,000 Silicon Valley workers may pursue collusion case against Apple, Google, others as group – January 14, 2014
Steve Jobs threatened patent suit to enforce no-hire policy, according to court filing – January 23, 2013
Judge Koh orders Apple CEO Tim Cook to four hours of questioning in anti-poaching case – January 17, 2013
Apple, Google, Intel, Adobe, Intuit, Pixar, and Lucasfilm fail to get staff-poaching antitrust lawsuit dismissed – April 19, 2012
Court filing: Steve Jobs told Google’s Schmidt to stop poaching workers – January 27, 2012
Did Apple CEO Steve Jobs ask Palm’s Colligan to collude? – August 20, 2009
Did Apple and Google make an anti-poaching deal? – August 9, 2009