El Reg reports:
A lawsuit (PDF) filed in California's San Jose District Court earlier this week claims the Cupertino giant misled investors and damaged the value of the company by striking a fishy hiring agreement with other corporations.
The class-action suit, filed by shareholder R. Andre Klein on behalf of all Apple shareholders, claims the iPhone giant committed "breach of fiduciary duty, gross mismanagement, corporate waste, and breach of the duty of honest services." The sueball names Apple CEO Tim Cook and the late cofounder Steve Jobs among the defendants in the case.
According to the filing, Apple violated provisions of the US Securities and Exchange Act when executives crafted agreements with Google, Intel, Adobe and more, to not actively recruit employees away from each other. The suit notes that Jobs (whose estate is listed as a defendant in the case) was particularly egregious in sealing deals with rival execs.
"Jobs's conduct is a reminder that even widely respected businessmen can knowingly commit unlawful acts in the zealous pursuit of profits," the suit alleges. "In this case, Jobs and the other Individual Defendants knowingly caused Apple to enter into agreements that violated California law and U.S. antitrust laws."
The suit seeks unspecified payouts from the company for damages to shareholders from the negative impact of the case on the company's value.
Apple lost a similar class-action case brought by ex-employees who felt they had been stiffed by the no-poach pact, and the iOS slinger looks to be on the hook for a substantial payout. The biz had offered a package worth $325M which the plaintiffs' lawyers accepted, but the deal was called off by Judge Lucy Koh over concerns that Apple and the other defendants were low-balling the workers.
(Score: 2) by Lagg on Thursday August 14 2014, @10:23PM
I'm betting that this lawsuit was drafted when Jobs was still alive and they're only now executing it and didn't really bother to do any significant revisions. I know that sounds farfetched but honestly it wouldn't surprise me if that were the case. Look at the players involved.
http://lagg.me [lagg.me] 🗿
(Score: 3, Funny) by khallow on Thursday August 14 2014, @10:31PM
More likely, it's a twenty year old Word document that they change the names on every time they make a new lawsuit. I don't think I'm exaggerating one bit.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 14 2014, @11:00PM
So you're saying that people were allowing themselves to be ripped off because they realised that one day, in the distant future, they'd be able to get some small fraction of the money back while the lawyers creamed the rest in legal fees.
(Score: 2) by jasassin on Thursday August 14 2014, @11:54PM
Reminds me of movie scripts with 18 producers
Reminds me of the South Park episode where they sue the ghost of toilet inventor Sir John Harrington.
Just wait for the ghost of Steve Jobs to appear and angrily explain how the whole "egregiously sealing deals with rival execs", was really just the harnessing of compellingly predominate flexible solutions, to progressively maximize all extensible sources!
jasassin@gmail.com GPG Key ID: 0xE6462C68A9A3DB5A
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Thursday August 14 2014, @10:50PM
If workers make claim to Apple profits to compensate the anti-poaching agreement. And then shareholders do the same.. Where is the money going to come from?
Can't be the workers duty to keep management in line. The shareholders can select the board and in turn CEO. So the persons with power and profit motive has to take the responsibility ie the bill.
Btw, how long does the real estate of a dead person exist in US ?
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday August 15 2014, @01:03AM
> Where is the money going to come from?
You do know that Apple has well over a $160,000,000,000 in cash and short-term investments, right?
Granted, most of it is abroad for tax evasion purposes...
While(Gazillions_in_cash($company)) Initiate_lawsuits($company, *excuse_today);
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Friday August 15 2014, @03:02AM
That's like 8 million USD per employee. Perhaps suing is a hobby I should pursue.... :D
The moral of this is to stick to the basic rules or shit breaks loose.
Anti-poaching karma.. [soylentnews.org] .. ;)
(Score: 5, Insightful) by e_armadillo on Thursday August 14 2014, @10:54PM
The employees had a clear cut case that demonstrated that they had been handed the short end of the stick. I have a hard time sympathizing with the investors. Over the time frame in question, they made a killing on Apple. Now time and money will be wasted trying to show how they were slighted? Give me a break . . .
"How are we gonna get out of here?" ... "We'll dig our way out!" ... "No, no, dig UP stupid!"
(Score: 2) by Dunbal on Thursday August 14 2014, @11:00PM
We need to have a SUEance! It's going to cost a lot more than $3000 though... (South Park reference for those who are going wtf?)
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Hairyfeet on Thursday August 14 2014, @11:02PM
Did we REALLY need that "sueball" crack, or do we need a "written by a fanboi" addendum added to TFA where there is bias on display? In this case the facts speak for themselves and only the most loyal of fanboys would try to say that Jobs couldn't have known this was a violation of antitrust. I mean for Christ's sake, the man has his own law team on speeddial, you can't tell me he couldn't have pushed the button and found out in 20 seconds that what he was planning wasn't kosher.
Now whether this will allow shareholders to sue is another matter but from all the evidence that has come out I think the facts really aren't in dispute, Jobs made some calls and set up a little good old boys backroom deal between the tech giants in order to keep wages suppressed and profits up...that's the facts folks, we have the emails.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by khallow on Friday August 15 2014, @12:04AM
Second highly slanted article submitted by this person.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Friday August 15 2014, @03:50AM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2) by khallow on Friday August 15 2014, @09:35PM
They chose what part of the quote to include. I notice that since, there have been three more articles from this submitter(s), two which IMHO show similar slanting and the third poor writing.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Friday August 15 2014, @09:54PM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Friday August 15 2014, @10:22AM
The simple fact of the matter is I don't give a shit if you submit an article from Faux or HuffyPo the point is those cracks don't belong in TFS because its supposed to be a SUMMARY, hence the S. When I write a TFS I may stick a little cute joke in there (like my little jab at Daikatana with Romero) but I try my best to keep politics and bias OUT of TFS because I want folks to read it and make up their OWN mind, even if TFA is biased in one way or another. When you put that kind of crap in TFS you are already derailing discussion and slanting shit before even a single post gets made and IMHO that just isn't good for a lively debate and without debate WTF is even the point of being here instead of just reading headlines from an RSS feed?
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 15 2014, @01:02AM
But how are we supposed to know its a brouhaha if he doesnt tell us?
I could see why the shareholders are suing. He basically broke his contract.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 15 2014, @02:45AM
"Sueball" is standard fare for El Reg.
Had the person who modded you "Insightful" clicked the link and looked at the article (Yeah, I know), he would have seen you were the opposite of insightful.
No surprise to me.
-- gewg_
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 14 2014, @11:11PM
This is THE difference between Woz and Jobs. Woz is a geek/nerd. Jobs is just another clever Wall-Street asshole.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 15 2014, @01:35AM
No one would sue Zombie Woz
People would line up to use baseball bats on Zombie Jobs
(Score: 2) by Alfred on Friday August 15 2014, @03:00PM
Kinda like Tesla and Edison.
(Score: 1) by arslan on Friday August 15 2014, @01:37AM
IANAL but why is only Apple feeling the heat here? Shouldn't the other companies who are complicit feel the heat as well?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 15 2014, @01:42AM
Because the Lawyers smell money . . .
(Score: 2) by sjames on Friday August 15 2014, @03:55AM
That's between the other companies employees, shareholders and executives. Perhaps the suits are in the making now or they may be waiting to see what happens.
(Score: 2) by khchung on Friday August 15 2014, @06:58AM
Because just the name "Apple" is enough to get a whole bunch of clicks? Already got us both, didn't it?
(Score: 2) by Blackmoore on Friday August 15 2014, @05:18PM
This has more to do with the amount of cash Apple has in the bank, and is sitting on.
The shareholders have been pushing for more dividends, and have not gotten them; so why not try another angle to extract "value"
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday August 15 2014, @04:30AM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by hash14 on Friday August 15 2014, @05:58AM
The guy was a complete asshole. When you look at how he treated people around him and you call him "a respected businessman," it just shows a complete lack of understanding and/or appreciation of legitimately good character traits.
Sure, he made products you like. Sure, he made you rich as a shareholder. That doesn't make him anything worth respecting. He was a turd and should always be remembered as one... albeit one you were willing to accept in exchange for the iShiny.
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Friday August 15 2014, @10:53PM
Anecdotal evidence isn't worth much, but I know a coworker who used to work at Apple under Jobs's reign of terror. "Reign of terror" is exactly right, from the way he described it; everyone was scared and trying to not be the one publicly humiliated or fired.
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