Four major tech companies have agreed to settle a lawsuit in which they were accused of conspiring to hold down salaries in Silicon Valley, according to Reuters.
The settlement comes just weeks before a high profile trial was set to begin, according to Reuters.
The terms of the settlement have not been spelled out yet, according to a court filing.
Tech workers filed a class action lawsuit against Apple, Google, Adobe, and Intel in 2011, claiming the company collaborated to "refrain from soliciting one another's employees in order to avert a salary war," according to Reuters.
The trial was set to begin at the end of May on behalf of approximately 65,000 workers.
A number of emails were released to the public involving exchanges between Apple's late co-founder Steve Jobs, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt and some of their Silicon Valley rivals.
One of the emails released included an exchange were after a Google recruiter tried soliciting an Apple employee, Schmidt told Jobs that the recruiter would be fired.
Jobs then sent the note to an Apple human resources executive with a smiley face, according to Reuters.
Another one released shows Google's human resources director asking Schmidt about sharing its no-cold call agreements with competitors. Schmidt, who is not the company's executive chairman, "advised discretion," according to Reuters.
"Schmidt responded that he preferred it be shared 'verbally, since I don't want to create a paper trail over which we can be sued later?'" he said, according to a court filing.
Spokespeople for Apple, Adobe, Intel, and Google has not commented publicly regarding the settlement yet.
An attorney for the plaintiffs, Kelly Dermody of Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein, called the settlement "an excellent resolution," in a statement, according to Reuters.
If the case did go to trial, plaintiffs would have likely asked a jury to award around $3 billion in damages, according to the court filings.
That number could have been tripled to $9 billion, under antitrust laws, according to Reuters.
The companies and the plaintiffs will disclose principal terms of the settlement on May 27.
Make sure to check back once details regarding the settlement have been released.
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