Last Friday Judge Lucy H. Koh issued an unusual ruling in a somewhat unusual case.  The ruling was unusual in that the court rejected a proposed settlement in the hi-tech wage collusion class action case.  Judge Koh denied a request to preliminarily approve a $324.5 million deal to end the antitrust class action against Google Inc., Apple Inc., Intel Corp. and Adobe Systems Inc.  The suit alleged the companies agreed to not compete for each others’ high-tech employees such as software engineers and computer scientists. The court found the proposed settlement too low and indicated it should be at least $55 million more.  The civil case followed a similar suit by the Antitrust Division charging a per se violation for agreeing not to compete, but the Division’s case was brought as a civil action.

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