Antitrust class action lawsuit filed against Apple, others over anti-poaching agreements

The law firm of Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein has announced that they have filed a class action lawsuit against Apple and other major tech companies on behalf of a Lucasfilm employee. The lawsuit alleges that the tech companies took part in illegal "no solicitation" agreements that barred them from poaching each others employees. These anti-poaching agreements led to "eliminate competition and cap pay for skilled employees" according to the lawsuit.

MacRumors notes that in addition to Apple, the suit names Adobe, Google, Intel, Intuit, Lucasfilm, and Pixar as defendants. Former Lucasfilm software engineer Siddharth Hariharan said in a statement, "My colleagues at Lucasfilm and I applied our skills, knowledge, and creativity to make the company an industry leader. It's disappointing that, while we were working hard to make terrific products that resulted in enormous profits for Lucasfilm, senior executives of the company cut deals with other premiere high tech companies to eliminate competition and cap pay for skilled employees."

The lawsuit goes on to say the the anti-poaching agreements first took place among Pixar and Lucasfilm in 2005. Shortly thereafter, Apple, Adobe, Google, Intel, and Intuit all joined in. The anti-poaching agreements were allegedly in place until 2009.