Judge Grants Final Approval to Settlement in Anti-Poaching Lawsuit Brought Against Apple, Others

U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh has granted final approval to a $415 million settlement in a class action lawsuit brought against Apple, Google, Intel, and Adobe. The companies are accused of agreeing not to poach each other's employees, limiting job mobility and salaries.

Attorneys in the case had asked for $81 million in fees; however, Koh said the amount would be an inappropriate "windfall" and awarded them about $40 million.

The class action lawsuit was filed back in 2011 and was based around emails in which Steve Jobs and Eric Schmidt detailed plans to avoid poaching each others engineers.


A previous attempt to settle had been made at $324.5 million but Koh rejected it after a plaintiff objected.

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