The US' Justice Department has reached an agreement with six major Silicon Valley companies to settle allegations that they colluded to stifle competition for employees by restricting the way they could poach workers from each other.
The settlement, filed in the US District Court for the District of Columbia late Friday, names Google Inc., Apple Inc., Intel Corp., Adobe Systems Inc., Intuit Inc. and Walt Disney Corp.'s Pixar Animation Studios.
The Justice Department had been investigating whether the companies pledged not to use 'cold calls' to recruit each other's employees, as part of partnership agreements. The government was concerned that such promises amounted to a form of collusion to avoid bidding wars for employees with specialised skills, and in turn held down payroll expenses.
According to the Justice Department, these agreements eliminated a significant form of competition to attract highly skilled employees, depriving employees of access to better job opportunities. The settlement bars the companies from entering into such "no-solicitation agreements" for employees for a period of five years.
In court documents, the Justice Department cited various partnership agreements among the companies from 2005 through 2007 in which both sides agreed not make unsolicited job offers to computer scientists, engineers and other workers with specialised skills.
Technology companies, however, argue that restrictions on contacting each other's employees encouraged partnerships that spurred economic growth and fostered more innovation.
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