Court rejects $325M wage-fixing settlement, says Apple, others should 'pay their fair share'

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Comments

  • Reply 21 of 23
    hmmhmm Posts: 3,405member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by sog35 View Post



     

    If Apple was up front and said to each employee that they could not work for Google for 2 years after leaving that would be okay.  Since it would be up to the employee to agree to those stipulations.  Instead Apple took away those employee rights without telling them.


    Non-compete agreements are unenforceable in California under most circumstances, as well as several other states. As I pointed out they can't legally take company IP with them. If they are actually sought after for their talents, they wouldn't need to do so anyway. What Apple and any other company can reasonably expect of their departing employees is that those employees do not take trade secrets with them. It's not reasonable for a company to restrict the employment of anyone once that person is no longer paid by the aforementioned company.

     

    Edit: I'll add an example here.

     

    Beyond that I don't think you understand the original purpose of non-compete clauses, because what you describe is always a gross misuse. Industries that rely on services and client relationships like them for the purpose of preventing someone such as a lawyer at a given firm or an art director at an ad agency from taking clients with them upon departure.

  • Reply 22 of 23
    Actually, judge Koh seems to be very honest and straight forward. Her point that a second settlement should equal at least the prior settlement is impossible to refute. The second class shows that the activity was widespread and therefore more damaging. Apple and Steve Jobs have made mistakes and this is one of them.
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