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Attaboy, DoJ! Out of (almost) nowhere, the United States Department of Justice announced today that it was requiring six well-known technology outfits to stop entering into "anticompetitive employee solicitation agreements," and we're guessing you will have heard just a few of these names: Adobe, Apple, Google, Intel, Intuit and Pixar. As the story goes, these six companies were all mixed up (but not all together, mind you) in agreements that forbid each other from cold calling employees from... a rival firm in order to offer them a different job.

According to the DoJ, those arrangements acted as a "significant form of competition to attract highly skilled employees," and it has now filed a civil antitrust complaint today along with a proposed settlement that, "if approved by the court, would resolve the lawsuit." We're also told that some of the agreements were put into place as early as 2005, and they were "formed and actively managed by senior executives of these companies." Yikes. Hit the source link for the full report, and feel free to call back that "Unknown" caller that keeps hitting you up on your Adobe line -- it's probably Pixar with a seven-figure offer.

Apple, Adobe, Google, Intel Intuit and Pixar: now free to cold call each other's employees originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 24 Sep 2010 22:37:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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