Big Tech firms suppressed workers pay by illegal agreements

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Private, no-hire email exchanges between Steve Jobs, Edward Colligan, and more made public

Other companies involved include Google, Adobe, and more
BY JEFFREY BAUSCH

Apple’s co-founder and former CEO Steve Jobs threatened to file a patent lawsuit against Palm if the company’s chief executive didn’t stop hiring Apple employees, according to a court filing made public this past week.

Part of Steve Jobs email to Edward Colligan.

The email exchange was revealed as part of a civil lawsuit brought on by five tech workers against Apple, Google, Intel, Adobe, AOL, and others, all of whom are alleged to having agreed upon an illegal conspiracy to eliminate competition for each other’s employees and drive down wages.

The tech companies listed in the suit have tried to keep documents detailing their discussions from the public eye, but U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh in San Jose, California, rejected parts of the request, which led to some details being made public, most notably, the aforementioned 2007 exchange between Jobs and then Palm-chief executive Edward Colligan.

During the course of the conversation, Jobs proposed eliminating competition between the two companies for employees. “Mr. Jobs also suggested that if Palm did not agree to such an arrangement, Palm could face lawsuits alleging infringement of Apple’s many patents,” Colligan said in a sworn statement cited by the plaintiffs. He thought about Jobs’ proposal, but later responded that the plan was “likely illegal” and that Palm was not “intimidated” by the threat.

He concluded: “If you choose the litigation route, we can respond with our own claims based on patent assets, but I don’t think litigation is the answer,” he said.

Interesting stuff, but it’s only the tip of the iceberg. There are plenty of other files set to be made available that reveal the depths of these “gentleman’s agreements” between companies like Google, Intel, Adobe, and more.

For instance, among the files already released are details explaining Google’s approach to no-hire agreements: When the company’s human resources director asked former chief executive Eric Schmidt about sharing its no-cold call agreements with its competitors, Schmidt agreed to do so, but issued some warning.

“Schmidt responded that he preferred it be shared ‘verbally, since I don’t want to create a paper trail over which we can be sued later?’”, according to the court files. The HR director agreed.

For those interested in following the story as it develops, the civil case in U.S. District Court, Northern District of California is In Re: High-Tech Employee Antitrust Litigation, 11-cv-2509.

You can read through Colliagan’s sworn statement below, which includes his email exchange with Jobs.