SAN FRAN­CIS­CO–Near­ly 60,000 high-tech work­ers are like­ly to re­ceive an av­er­age of US$4,000 apiece in a set­tle­ment of a class-ac­tion law­suit al­leg­ing Ap­ple and Google con­spired in an il­le­gal car­tel of Sil­i­con Val­ley em­ploy­ers that se­cret­ly re­fused to re­cruit each oth­er's en­gi­neers. The es­ti­mate is based up­on an analy­sis of court doc­u­ments in the case, in­clud­ing the terms of a US$324.5 mil­lion set­tle­ment out­lined for the first time in a fil­ing made late last week.

The fi­nal amounts paid to each of the el­i­gi­ble work­ers will vary de­pend­ing on their salaries dur­ing the four-year pe­ri­od cov­ered by the law­suit.A fed­er­al judge still must ap­prove the set­tle­ment, which is al­ready fac­ing re­sis­tance from one of the work­ers rep­re­sent­ing the en­tire class. A hear­ing on the set­tle­ment is sched­uled for June 19 in a San Jose, Cal­i­for­nia, fed­er­al court.

The US$324.5 mil­lion set­tle­ment will be paid by Ap­ple Inc, Google Inc and two oth­er Sil­i­con Val­ley com­pa­nies, In­tel Corp and Adobe Sys­tems Inc, ac­cused of col­lud­ing to cor­ral their top tech­nol­o­gy work­ers.

AP