Judge Lucy H. Koh of the United States District Court in San Jose rejected as insufficient a proposed $324 million settlement in a class-action antitrust case that accused leading tech companies of agreeing not to poach one another's engineers.
In April, lawyers for the 64,000 class members and the companies reached a tentative deal. But the judge said the money did not fall "within the range of reasonableness." After the plaintiffs' lawyers took their 25 percent cut, the settlement would have given about $4,000 to every member of the class.
The case will now go to trial unless the parties cobble together another settlement that meets the judge's approval. Lawyers for the plaintiffs earlier cited damages of $3 billion to the class members. If a jury awarded that amount, it would be automatically tripled.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by sigterm on Saturday August 09 2014, @03:27PM
Why haven't criminal charges been filed? Surely, an egregious violation of anti-trust laws is not merely a civil matter?
Or is there a provision in the Sherman or Clayton act exempting sufficiently rich bastards?
(Score: 4, Informative) by captain normal on Saturday August 09 2014, @04:26PM
I would think mainly because the primary player is dead. Jobs pretty much bullied everyone else into going along.
Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts"- --Daniel Patrick Moynihan--
(Score: 2, Interesting) by edIII on Saturday August 09 2014, @07:07PM
So the excuse is akin to mob mentality?
Adobe who is the paragon of virtue, Google who does no evil, and Intuit who oddly enough should be aware of employee wages, were just caught up in an impromptu gang rape of Silicon Valley engineers?
FADE IN:
Silent conference room, a Fed clicks the recorder....
ADOBE
GOOGLE
INTUIT
GOOGLE
ADOBE
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by captain normal on Saturday August 09 2014, @07:42PM
That might actually be closer to the truth than you might think. ;-)
Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts"- --Daniel Patrick Moynihan--
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Saturday August 09 2014, @05:09PM
IRS - wants the money
NSA - wants the data
So they don't want any disruption ;)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 11 2014, @12:55AM
When you get right down to it,
those are the two 'levers'
chiefly at work in the USA
mirroring this famous
quote:
NSA takes care of the fear the populus has for the U.S. Government.
IRS takes care of the self interest on behalf of the U.S. Government.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Nerdfest on Saturday August 09 2014, @09:43PM
I thought they all just agreed not to actively solicit each other's employees. This is different than agreeing to *hire* each other's employees. I don't think the first one should be illegal.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Saturday August 09 2014, @06:34PM
If it costs less to screw the law (ie workers) than to profit. Then this will be repeated. So the costs for doing this has to be larger than the profit of this case. And large enough to cover other occasions where it has not been brought to justice to discourage any risk taking.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Thexalon on Saturday August 09 2014, @08:20PM
In all cases. To prevent crime from paying, punishment must be greater than the profit or the cost to others (whichever is greater) multiplied by the inverse chance of getting caught (e.g. if half of offenders who commit a $1 million crime get caught, the punishment must be more than $2 million).
So, when a bank defrauds 60,000 homeowners for $150,000 apiece, the punishment should be at least $9 billion, and probably closer to $27 billion. When a company steals $6000 a year in wages from 10,000 employees, the fine had better be over $60 million. And in this case, where the damages are about $4,000 per 64,000 employees, that demands a judgment of at least $256 million + attorney's fees.
Whenever you hear reports of huge fines, settlements, or damage awards, first calculate the actual damage, and then you can see if the criminal in question was actually punished for their crime, or if someone was merely demanding their cut of the profits. A lot of the time, it's not really a punishment and they're trusting that most people can't/won't do the math to notice that.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Saturday August 09 2014, @09:50PM
What's the average real damage per employee in this case?
And for how long has this damage been going on?
(Score: 4, Interesting) by cafebabe on Saturday August 09 2014, @09:07PM
As usual, the legal fees are criminal. A 2% fee for a $324 million settlement would still be $6.5 million. And employees would average an extra $1,160.
Anyhow, with the threat of trial and triple damages, an offer closer to $900 million could be forthcoming.
1702845791×2
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 10 2014, @08:12AM
Shouldn't that be 65,536?