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Apple, Google to pay $324 million to settle conspiracy lawsuit

reuters.com

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Re: Apple, Google to pay $324 million to settle conspiracy lawsuit

#11

Post by MichaelApproved »

x3c wrote: post #10

324M for 64000 employees in the class action lawsuit. That appears to be 5k per employee before legal fee which could be as high as 30% of the settlement. Hardly 2-3k for each employee, I think. Very cheap for the companies. But at least a good precedent to discourage such practices in the future.

> Very cheap for the companies. But at least a good precedent to discourage such practices in the future.

These two sentences don't mix well with each other. Either it's cheap for companies and worth the expense or it's a good precedent that discourages these practices in the future.

Cheap doesn't discourage.

Re: Apple, Google to pay $324 million to settle conspiracy lawsuit

#12

Post by zwegner »

x3c wrote: post #10

324M for 64000 employees in the class action lawsuit. That appears to be 5k per employee before legal fee which could be as high as 30% of the settlement. Hardly 2-3k for each employee, I think. Very cheap for the companies. But at least a good precedent to discourage such practices in the future.

> Very cheap for the companies. But at least a good precedent to discourage such practices in the future.

does not compute

Re: Apple, Google to pay $324 million to settle conspiracy lawsuit

#13

Post by whoismua »

beedogs wrote: post #5

Settlement seems low. Looks like every company involved ended up saving quite a bit of money, after all is said and done, with this little salary racket they had going.

Dear Sergey, Larry, Tim Cook & Co, don't do this again or you'll pay tens of millions after saving hundreds of millions in salaries and benefit.

Re: Apple, Google to pay $324 million to settle conspiracy lawsuit

#14

Post by 001sky »

beedogs wrote: post #5

Settlement seems low. Looks like every company involved ended up saving quite a bit of money, after all is said and done, with this little salary racket they had going.

"They planned to ask for $3 billion in damages at trial, according to court filings. That could have tripled to $9 billion under antitrust law."

$0.03-0.10/dollar seems pretty cheap. were the odds really that low in court?

Re: Apple, Google to pay $324 million to settle conspiracy lawsuit

#15

Post by malandrew »

Why in the world would those 64k employees take this offer? It was clear that they were going to pay for this and that a jury would be sympathetic. Was there really any chance that the amount gained could have be lower for the plaintiffs had this case gone to a jury trial? If not, then why didn't they go to trial?

Re: Apple, Google to pay $324 million to settle conspiracy lawsuit

#16

Post by abalone »

malandrew wrote: post #15

Why in the world would those 64k employees take this offer? It was clear that they were going to pay for this and that a jury would be sympathetic. Was there really any chance that the amount gained could have be lower for the plaintiffs had this case gone to a jury trial? If not, then why didn't they go to trial?

It actually addresses this. The report explains that there's a chance the whole thing would have been invalidated by an appellate judge.

Still, personally as a class member I would've pressed for more, and I bet it's because the firm has different incentives. They probably stand to get something on the order of $100M of that settlement. They're thinking, $100M in the hand is worth $1B in the bush. Especially since going to trial explodes their costs.

But at the ~$3K level most class members stand to gain (on average), I bet most would bet that for a chance at $30K. I would. Sucks that the class members don't have a say.

Re: Apple, Google to pay $324 million to settle conspiracy lawsuit

#17

Post by simonh »

diestl wrote: post #7

This will leave a bad taste in the mouth around these companies. Apple really sound like a disgusting corporation when you look behind their well orchestrated PR image.

Just out of curiosity, why did you choose to call out Apple particularly?

Re: Apple, Google to pay $324 million to settle conspiracy lawsuit

#18

Post by tsotha »

x3c wrote: post #10

324M for 64000 employees in the class action lawsuit. That appears to be 5k per employee before legal fee which could be as high as 30% of the settlement. Hardly 2-3k for each employee, I think. Very cheap for the companies. But at least a good precedent to discourage such practices in the future.

No, it's probably not enough to discourage such practices. They almost certainly pocketed more than that as a result of their collusion - from a straight green-eyeshades perspective they ought to get together over a beer this weekend and hammer out a similar agreement.
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