Apple, Adobe, Google and Intel settle with 64,000 employees

Apple, Google, Intel and Adobe have settled a lawsuit filed by more than 64,000 employees. The tech companies would have kept salaries artificially low through mutual agreements.

According to the indictment, Apple, Google, Intel and Adobe made the banned salary agreements to prevent the companies from stealing employees from each other. The more than 64,000 employees filed a class action lawsuit for damages of $3 billion, or nearly 2.2 billion euros. Due to the settlement reached, the lawsuit lapses.

Reuters news agency reports that the four tech companies in the settlement will pay 324 million dollars, converted 234 million euros. Apple, Google, Intel and Adobe have thus avoided a potential billion-dollar fine. If the judge had also found cartel agreements to be proven, he could have imposed a fine of up to $9 billion in addition to the $3 billion in damages.

The indictment against the four tech companies was mainly based on a number of emails between, among others, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt and the late Apple founder Steve Jobs. For example, in an email to Jobs, Schmidt said a Google recruiter would be fired after offering an Apple employee a job at the search giant. Schmidt would also have requested a personnel manager to communicate the secret agreements only verbally with other parties.

Apple, Google and Intel declined to comment on the matter. An Adobe employee said his company did not violate competition rules, and that the settlement was reached to avoid the uncertainty of a lawsuit and to avoid further legal costs.