On Friday, September 24, 2010, The U.S. Department of Justice announced that it had reached a settlement with six prominent technology companies (Adobe, Apple, Google, Intel, Intuit, and Pixar) relating to a probe on corporate recruiting policies that potentially violated antitrust laws. The six aforementioned companies allegedly formed agreements which prevented them from directly soliciting each other’s employees. The proposed settlement, if approved by the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia hearing the issue, will prohibit the companies from utilizing anticompetitive non solicitation agreements for five years, and will require the companies to implement compliance systems to ensure these recruiting practices are discontinued. This announcement is the latest headline in a series of antitrust investigations by the D.O.J. involving the technology sector – recently the department had investigated overlap between the Apple and Google Boards of Directors and considered the antitrust implications of the Google Books settlement.
In its press release, the D.O.J. noted the high technology sector’s strong demand for employees with “advanced or specialized skills,” and alluded that one benefit of the settlement will be better career opportunities for these valuable workers because they would be in an unrestrained job market with a “properly functioning price-setting mechanism” (i.e. more opportunities for employment and the potential for higher salaries due to increased leverage during salary negotiations).
Interestingly absent from the press release was mention of the benefits of the settlement to consumers of technology and media. In addition to the advantages gained by the workers who were previously kept “under wraps” by these companies, technology and media consumers may soon be indirect beneficiaries of an increasing the pace of technological development and also the broadening of the engineers’ technical capabilities stemming from the acquisition of new knowledge and philosophies garnered from working in a new environment.