Court Approves $415M Settlement In Tech Worker Lawsuit

It looks like that antipoaching lawsuit might finally be coming to an end now that a judge has approved a $415 million settlement in the case.

The antitrust class action lawsuit was filed in 2011. It has been closely watched because of the possibility that big damages might be awarded and for the opportunity to peek into the world of some elite U.S. tech firms. The case was based largely on emails in which Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, former Google Chief Executive Officer Eric Schmidt and some of their rivals detailed plans to avoid poaching each other's prized engineers.

No problem, they'll just request even more H1Bs and follow it up with a set of hasty firings to deal with any potential loss to their precious stock prices

Actually, the same sort of thing has been common practice here in the DoD contract world. The differencee, if it matters, is that it's usually an agreement between Prime Contractors and their Subs. The Government frequently requires large Contractor companies to use subcontractor companies, usually small businesses, on contract work supposedly because it helps guerantee competition and fosters the growth of new businesses.

Of course the other thing it does is create a world where there are groups of entrepreneurs who specialize in raising new startups as samll businesses, usually there is a woman and a minority on the ownership line, that are grown, and as soon as they no longer can claim small business status, they are sold to a bigger company, and usually swallowed up, or cut up and dissapear.