Boston, MA 09/03/2014 (wallstreetpr) – According to reports, a U.S. judge has finally approved a settlement between eBay Inc (NASDAQ:EBAY) and federal antitrust authorities.
What’s in the matter:
As per the reports, eBay Inc (NASDAQ:EBAY) announced a deal earlier this year which stated that it would never indulge into any activity with other tech companies that involved employees poaching. Edward Davila, U.S. District Judge gave approval to EBAY’s agreement that it did with U.S. Department of Justice. The hiring procedures in Silicon Valley have been paid close attention by authorities. Tech giants like Google and Apple Inc. have already announced to settle things with federal authorities over various non-solicitation deals. They have promised to execute things without paying money. Although EBAY did a settlement with California antitrust regulators in which it agreed to pay a total sum of $3.75 million as compensation to those workers who were affected directly or indirectly by no-poach deals.
No EBAY representative could be contacted even after trying more than once by reporters. Some time back, eBay Inc (NASDAQ:EBAY) said that the policy that prompted the lawsuit was legally correct and fully acceptable. It led to anticompetitive effects in the talent segment in which EBAY was active. The conditions were not same always, and the biggest example of this is the decision of one other U.S. Judge. He rejected a settlement worth of $324.5 million against Intel, Google, Adobe and Apple over the same kind of allegations. While clarifying he said that the settlement amount proposed by all the companies was way too small to accept.
According to a report published by the court, Intuit and eBay Inc (NASDAQ:EBAY) entered into an agreement eight years ago that included Intuit Founder Scott Cook and EBAY CEO Meg Whitman. During that time, Cook was serving in EBAY board, and he complained that EBAY was poaching Intuit’s employees. Currently, Whitman is working with Hewlett-Packard Co. as Chief Executive Officer.
