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C. Litigation Arising From “Anti-Poaching” AgreementsIn addition to requiring employees to sign confidentiality agreements, some employershave also attempted to implement “anti-poaching” or non-solicitation agreements as ameans to protect an employer’s investment in employees and to shield the disclosure ofconfidential information between competitors. By way of example, two or more regionalcompetitors might agree to refrain from interviewing or hiring each other’s employees.However, because these agreements implicate antitrust concerns, there is a growingtrend in litigation involving these alleged “anti-poaching” agreements.One of these cases is In Re: High-Tech Employee Antitrust Litigation, currently pendingbefore Judge Koh in the Northern District of California, Case No. 11-CV-02509-LHK. Inthat case, the plaintiffs alleged that Google, Inc., Apple, Inc., Intel Corp., and AdobeSystems, Inc. illegally agreed not to poach each other’s engineers. This lawsuit wasfiled in May 2011, and seeks damages for antitrust violations stemming from thecompanies’ alleged agreements to provide each other notice whenever one made anoffer to another company’s employee. The plaintiffs also contend that the defendantsagreed to cap pay packages for prospective hires to prevent bidding wars, and toabstain from recruiting one another’s personnel entirely. The parties entered into atentative agreement to settle the class claims for $324.5 million, but Judge Koh rejectedthe settlement in August 2014, finding it offered class members proportionally less thandeals that were struck by other companies that were initially targeted by the DOJ forantitrust allegations. The defendants are seeking Ninth Circuit review of the decision toreject the settlement, but as of the date these materials were finalized, no decision hasbeen made on that appeal and the case is set to start trial on April 9, 2015.3082723.3