"If California is going to continue to be the high-tech capital of the world, we can't allow anti-competitive conduct that prevents talent from going where it's put to its highest use," Harris said.
In 2010, the Justice Department entered consent decrees with Google, Apple, Adobe Systems Inc., Intel Corp., Intuit and Pixar that barred the companies from agreeing not to recruit each other's employees. The DOJ's Antitrust Division brought a separate lawsuit against Lucasfilm. The eBay case grew out of the same investigation.
A class action is pending before U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh on behalf of high-tech workers employed by those companies between 2005 and 2009. A hearing on class certification is scheduled for early next year.
