Apple, Google, Adobe and Intel all appealed Judge Lucy Koh’s rejection of the proposed $324.5 million settlement for the anti-poaching class action lawsuit. According to Reuters, defendants in the ongoing anti-poaching case requested that the US Circuit Court of Appeals step in after Judge Koh’s recent decision to refuse the settlement offer after stating that Judge Koh:

For those of you who didn’t know, the jurist denied a proposed settlement on the grounds that the settlement amount was too low. At the time, Koh said that the defendants should “pay their fair share” for suppressing wages through non-compete hiring clauses which were proven via evidence. At least part of the decision was to deny based on a comparison with a similar settlement involving Disney and Intuit, which saw employees awarded damages proportionally higher than what would be paid out of the more recent proposed settlement price of $324.5 million.

Even though the damages amount to a lower price, attorneys that are representing the Silicon Valley tech giants pushed Judge Koh to agree to the terms noting that employees may not get anything if and when the trial moves to appeal. Judge Koh in turn “dismissed the parties” analysis of the trial risks, suggesting that unless the settlement was larger, the court had “wasted years on this case.”

We’ll have to wait and see what happens when the parties meet at the September 10th hearing which is dedicated to resolve the matter.

Source: Reuters