Competition among technology companies for highly skilled employees has been fierce over the past several years. Leading tech companies such as Facebook Inc., Twitter and LinkedIn Corp. have engaged in bidding wars for software engineers by offering packages of company stock and cash, and Google Inc. recently gave all of its employees a 10 percent raise. Facebook has aggressively courted Google’s top talent, and went so far as to poach Google’s head chef in 2008. In late 2005, the Wall Street Journal reported that Google tried to lure a software engineer from eBay Inc. with an offer of a six-figure salary and stock worth several million dollars.
Beginning in 2005, a number of high-profile technology companies attempted to counteract the effects of the bidding wars by entering into bilateral agreements to refrain from “cold calling” each others’ employees. The non-solicitation agreements covered all of the companies’ employees, and were not limited by geography, job function, product group or time period.
DOJ Investigation and settlement
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