Pocket : Bigger Settlement Said to Be Reached in Silicon Valley Antitrust Case

Apple, Google, Intel and Adobe are offering a joint payment of $415 million to settle the case, according to a source close to the negotiations, up from the $324.5 million they offered in the spring.

The case is scheduled to go to trial this spring in San Jose.

Lawyers for the 64,000 software engineers who are the class-action plaintiffs have already agreed to the new figure, but that does not automatically end the case. The earlier amount was acceptable to the plaintiffs’ lawyers, but it was rejected by the judge overseeing the case as inadequate.

The suit asserts that the companies had illegal agreements that they would not directly solicit one another’s employees. That limited the engineers’ mobility and their pay, to the benefit of the companies, the suit said. The case grew out of reported actions by the companies that centered on a period that began in 2005, when Google was ascendant and Apple was trying to defend its turf

Pocket : Bigger Settlement Said to Be Reached in Silicon Valley Antitrust Case