Filed under: Apple Corporate, Bad Apple
WaPo: DOJ preparing antitrust probe for Apple, among others
Apple, Google, Yahoo! and Genentech are subjects of a fresh antitrust investigation surrounding hiring and recruiting practices among companies in the tech industry, according to Washington Post staff writer Cecilia Kang.
"By agreeing not to hire away top talent, the companies could be stifling competition and trying to maintain their market power unfairly," antitrust experts said in the article. Hiring and recruiting can sometimes be a touchy affair, as Apple found out late last year when trying to hire Mark Papermaster. The investigation may suggest some kind of written agreement among large tech firms to not hire away each other's top talent.
According to the New York Times, Justice has only requested documents for the ongoing investigation. Neither the Justice Department nor any of the companies mentioned in the story had any comment.
This comes in addition to another Justice investigation into ties between the boards of directors of Apple and Google, and whether or not having Google CEO Eric Schmidt on both (and Genentech CEO Arthur Levinson on all three) constitutes antitrust violations. Some consider Apple and Google to be competitors in certain areas such as phone handsets.
The Obama administration is stepping up efforts to investigate anti-competitive activity among high-tech companies, and is already investigating Google's deal with book authors to republish their work via Google Books.
[Via AppleInsider]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
RadicalxEdward said 11:48AM on 6-03-2009
I gotta say, I for one wouldn't mind some kind of open letter from tuaw explaining why someone can have an appleinsider and engadget rss feed, and never need to visit TUAW. It's like the writers just sit on those two sites waiting for apple news, and then post it when they get around to it. It's nice seeing an app review every once in a while, but thats pretty much all tuaw offers. and i know i'm not the first who's mentioned this.
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oliver hart said 12:15PM on 6-03-2009
Every other story on engadget is about a netbook.
If you don't like it then quit bitching and leave.
216 said 3:45PM on 6-03-2009
And if the story's not about a netbook its probably about a supposed Apple netbook/why Apple won't make a netbook
Wheels said 12:51PM on 6-03-2009
Does this mean that anti-compete clauses in employee contracts are going to be done away with too? I doubt it. While I understand the fundamental difference between what's going on here and an employee non-compete clause, they both accomplish the same rudimentary thing. In my view, in a true capitalist, competitive, society, neither of these types of things should be allowed.
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mabhatter said 1:50PM on 6-03-2009
It's stickier than that. It's common in the fallout of cases like "Papermaster" for companies to settle the charge out-of-court and part of that usually involves agreeing not to poach employees from certain divisions or within a certain time frame of their employment.
It's quite common, in fact many Contracting houses have similar agreements that the customer can't hire away their best employees, or that employees can't work for customers within in a certain time frame.
Even in my industry [manufacturing], we have supplier agreements that prevent the larger companies we supply from poaching our employees directly, and vis-a-versa.
It's hardly a new thing, and considering it's California probably very hard to enforce compared to places like Michigan, Minnesota, or New York where it would have sharper teeth.
Le Big Mac said 3:05PM on 6-03-2009
Non-compete clauses are vital to making sure that high-level employees don't take away trade secrets to competitors. Without them companies would have an extremely hard time developing new products/methods without constant risk the person would be hired away. If contracts could bind employees to a company it might be different, but we rather frown on slavery and forced employment.
macserv said 5:01PM on 6-03-2009
Ensuring employee job satisfaction can do a really good job of securing the aforementioned information, possibly better than does a non-compete clause does.
Martin said 1:36PM on 6-03-2009
Do people really call the Washington Post "WaPo?" I don't think I could bring myself to do that.
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216 said 3:47PM on 6-03-2009
No. No one that lives in the DMV (aka the DC Metro) refers to the Washington Post as "WaPo". Even though, after looking at the title, I still knew they were talking about the Washington Post before i saw the article
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