That's absolutely right. Employees have every right to be pissed and to sue for damages. Shareholders have no right suing Apple over this. This guy wants to make money off a rich company. Nothing more. Also what gives him the right to sue "on the behalf of all shareholders". He can't prove this affected him or other shareholders negatively and should be told to go home.
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Apple Sued by Shareholders Over Anti-Poaching Agreements with Other Companies
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That's absolutely right. Employees have every right to be pissed and to sue for damages. Shareholders have no right suing Apple over this. This guy wants to make money off a rich company. Nothing more. Also what gives him the right to sue "on the behalf of all shareholders". He can't prove this affected him or other shareholders negatively and should be told to go home.
Why isn't this handled by contract law through employment contracts?
Why in the hell do we need the feds to regulate how companies hire (or don't hire) employees?
Why in the hell do we need the feds to regulate how companies hire (or don't hire) employees?
Thats the way to increase share holder value! Sue the company you invest in for something they are already being sued for. So your dividend can be even less!
I missed the part where there are only 3 choices in Silicon Valley for employment. There are all kinds of barriers to being hired for your dream job. This is just another one and the people complaining here would have already worked at one of those other big companies. I fail to see just how evil it is to "lock" in employees. Instead of bribing them to stay (which is still an option), you're making an agreement with other companies not to hire them just like a non-compete contract would do.
A clarification: the agreement was to stop trying to recruit each other's employees. Employees were allegedly still free to apply for employment at the other companies, on their own.
In practice, I'm not sure that was the case. Participants in the agreement may have declined to make an offer to an otherwise desirable employee because they already worked for one of the other companies. But, it's not likely that's documented anywhere.
What does this have to do with a stockholder suit? There have been plenty of discussions about the anti-poaching policy and subsequent fines. This isn't one of them.
That's already happened:
Justice Department Requires Six High Tech Companies to Stop Entering into Anticompetitive Employee Solicitation Agreements
The article mentions a settlement that has to be approved by a court, but I haven't found an article that details what it entails.
There's also a separate announcement by the DoJ for a similar sanction against eBay.
There has been at least one settlement in regard to this issue, but it was for a class-action lawsuit by employees, not the DoJ. The settlement involving Apple was recently rejected by the judge as inadequate.
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In this case, the Department of Justice is enforcing federal anti-trust laws.
I agree with you. That said, let's try to understand the argument. I think it goes like this: Apple was engaged in an illegal action. Apple management was responsible for knowing this was illegal. Given that, they should have anticipated substantial fines. Therefore, Apple, in its public disclosures, was omitting a significant liability; therefore, misleading investors. Therefore, causing the high stock price you mention, based on false or misleading information.
I think it's BS. But that's the core argument of the suit, I believe.
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He doesn't have to prove this affected him negatively to win the suit. He only has to prove Apple knowingly disclosed false or misleading information. See my previous comment.
Then the law should prosecute. This is simply greed of shareholders, who think they know better how to run apple than apple.
I agree that apple should be prosecuted, like the other tech compnies that did this. But this lawsuit is nothing but greedy people feeling entitled.
Homie boy won't get the money - the blood sucking lawyers will. Shareholders will get a few pennies on the dollar at best.
This guy must be a blood sucker.
"Apple shareholder R. Andre Klein is suing Apple on behalf of all of its shareholders over the company's anti-poaching agreements"
...?
Once again, MacRumors is spouting off nonsense about legal filings its authors clearly haven't read or don't understand. To name just one, this is a shareholder derivative suit, which means the plaintiff must clear numerous obstacles before representing a class. One of those includes a demand on the board that they sign onto the suit, a demand they almost certainly will refuse. That doesn't end the case, but it illustrates how poorly grounded this story is.
Apart from that, there is almost no news value to reporting mere complaints, as this site often does. Anyone can file suit over anything. That doesn't mean the allegations are correct, or even tend to be correct. And no one gets to represent a class of others in a suit until daunting procedural hurdles (collectively known as class certification) are overcome. Stating, as this article does, that this clown "represents" shareholders is simply dead wrong. He wants to, but that won't happen anytime soon if indeed it ever does.
MR doesn't understand what it's reading, or it's reading the wrong things, or it's trying to pad its homepage with non-news that looks like news. I suspect all three problems exist here.
Apart from that, there is almost no news value to reporting mere complaints, as this site often does. Anyone can file suit over anything. That doesn't mean the allegations are correct, or even tend to be correct. And no one gets to represent a class of others in a suit until daunting procedural hurdles (collectively known as class certification) are overcome. Stating, as this article does, that this clown "represents" shareholders is simply dead wrong. He wants to, but that won't happen anytime soon if indeed it ever does.
MR doesn't understand what it's reading, or it's reading the wrong things, or it's trying to pad its homepage with non-news that looks like news. I suspect all three problems exist here.
Not quite. The agreement did not keep an employee from working elsewhere. As I understood the situation, the companies agreed not to actively go after each others' talent. If an individual employee made the inquiries to jump, they were not impeded per the agreement. I'm sure many did move around. Also, practice may not have matched the agreement.
I agree that actually blocking an individual from employment in another company would be bad. I do not have as much of a problem with agreeing not to proselytize.
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The article is wrong. The suit is a derivative action, which means that the plaintiff is suing on behalf of Apple against the directors of the company for abuse. What gives him standing to sue is the fact that he is a shareholder, which makes him a member of the company.
This very much remains to be seen. Anyone can file a class action suit, and many are filed, but that doesn't mean they will get a penny from it. They still have to demonstrate how the stockholders as a class were harmed, and the only way I see that happening is on the basis of the fines levied on Apple and the others by the courts for the collusion. The numbers really aren't that big, especially when spread out over all the shares of all the companies involved. As "money grabs" go, it seems pretty weak.
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Generally a good point, but it will be difficult for either Apple or the plaintiffs to establish any sort of cause and effect. The only real evidence the plaintiffs have in this case that their interests as stockholders were damaged is the dollar amount of the court settlement, and even that isn't known for certain yet.
No, as you said, the shareholders gain $100M. That is 100% true. MAYBE the stock devalues or not we don't know
One of the main reasons to file a shareholder lawsuit is to force a company to do something, not necessarily to make money from the suit.