Court in California denied Apple, Google, Intel and Adobe to pay kickbacks in the amount of $ 324.5 million for the pre-trial settlement of the dispute with former employees who accused the company of conspiring against hiring specialists competitors. District Judge of San Jose Lucy Koh held that it is impossible.
Koch said on existing strong evidence that "the central figure in the conspiracy" technology companies could be a co-founder of Apple, Steve Jobs.
In Apple and Google declined to comment. Intel spokesman Chuck Mulloy said the company is disappointed with the judge's decision. Plaintiffs' attorneys, as well as representatives of Adobe, were unavailable for comment operational.
Earlier this year, a group of 10 000 people filed a class action lawsuit against the technology corporations, accusing them of complicity in the salary. Charges were brought against Apple, Google, Adobe Systems, Intel, and several other corporations. In addition to the salary the company accused of collusion agreement not to poach top managers from each other. The plaintiffs relied on the payment of $ 9 billion, or about 90 000 each.
The investigation found e-mails, dated 2007, which was conducted by the late Jobs, and then a Google CEO Eric Schmidt. In one of the founder of Apple demanded the head of Google to stop poaching professionals. Schmidt redirected letter with complaints to their subordinates.As a result, employee Google, lure developer Apple, decided to fire and Jobs apologized.
In April of this year, Apple, Google, Intel and Adobe have offered to pay the lease in the amount of $ 324.5 million for the pre-trial settlement. The plaintiffs also demanded payment of about $ 3 billion in damages. A total of antitrust proceedings could cost IT-giants in the $ 9 billion.