Apple, Google and two other Silicon Valley firms have reportedly agreed to pay $415 million to settle an antitrust class action lawsuit involving 64,000 former employees of the companies who accused their employers of conspiring to fix hiring practices from 2005 to 2009, Reuters reports.
The Justice Department busted Apple (AAPL), Google (GOOG), Adobe Systems (ADBE), and Intel (INTC) for their anti-competitive practices back in 2010, but the employees who lost out got together and accused the firms in a 2011 lawsuit for limiting job mobility and, as a result, keeping a lid on salaries. The settlement, filed Thursday in a San Jose, California, federal court, is $90.5 million more than a previous deal which U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh rejected as too low and inadequate five months ago.
The 2011 lawsuit sought $3 billion in damages that could have been tripled under U.S. antitrust law.
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