Samsung, LG Sued Over US Employee Recruiting Policies (reuters.com) 35
A former sales manager for LG has sued Samsung and LG in a California court, alleging that both the companies have poached each other's U.S. employees despite having signed an agreement to not do so. Reuters reports: The plaintiff, A. Frost, says in the lawsuit that a recruiter contacted Frost via LinkedIn in 2013, seeking to fill a position with Samsung. According to the lawsuit, the recruiter then informed Frost the same day: "I made a mistake! I'm not supposed to poach LG for Samsung!!! Sorry! The two companies have an agreement that they won't steal each other's employees." It is "implausible" that such a deal in the United States could have been reached without the consent of each company's corporate parent in South Korea, says the lawsuit, which does not state a specific damages amount.
Re:BLOWED UP REAL GOOD! (Score:4, Insightful)
Hardly. There may be some minimal fines, and some consent decrees, and they will continue on with a few token hires and better management of the process.
Look at Wells Fargo [slashdot.org] - Such breathtaking violations of consumer finance laws and regulations, literal theft, an organizational culture that both permitted and failed to detect such behavior, and NO ONE will go to jail. The theft charges that were not brought should compel that, and the fines are an order of magnitude less than deserved.
This is chump change comparatively.
./ Editors Fail Again (Score:5, Informative)
The editors make this sound like what was wrong was that they were poaching each other's employees despite agreeing not to.
Wrong.
What is wrong, as clearly outlined in the article, if the editor took 10 seconds to RTFA, is that such a deal, agreeing not to poach one anothers employees, is against anti-trust laws.
it is no /.'s fault - Re:./ Editors Fail Again (Score:1)
What I thought (Score:1)
Didn't this happen to Apple and Google some time back too?
Re:./ Editors Fail Again (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, terrible fucking summary, Makes it sound like some asshole is suing them for not honoring their non-poaching agreements. The actual article makes it clear that they are actually being sued for HAVING those non-poaching agreements in the first place.
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Ha, didn't even see that mistake!
If that domain wasn't on sale for 10k USD, I would be tempted to mirror ./ but with actual edited summaries.
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It's alleged that it's against anti-trust.
Anti-poaching agreements are NOT anti-hiring agreements. If Apple and Google have an anti-poaching agreement, employees are actually freely able to move between Apple and Google. It's always been the case. All an anti-poaching agreement states is one will not cold-call the other.
Of cou
Re: anti-trust laws (Score:2)
Do you mean there actually are anti-trust laws that are being enforced?
such a deal is not ok under CA labor laws as well (Score:4, Informative)
such a deal is not ok under CA labor laws as well other places.
Re: (Score:2)
as well other places.
Precious few other places.
Re:Wait...what? (Score:4, Insightful)
Pretty tough to honor an agreement like that if you don't let the people doing the hiring know about it.
And once such information makes it to HR - Well, when did your company last send a copy of your tax information to a Nigerian prince who asked nicely?
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And once such information makes it to HR - Well, when did your company last send a copy of your tax information to a Nigerian prince who asked nicely?
Does that happen very often?
Re:Wait...what? (Score:5, Funny)
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that made me giggle irl
i'd mod this "funny", but i commented previously :(
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And who, exactly does that "filing"? Does a company the size of Samsung have all 50,000 resumes they get per day sent directly to their VP of Secret Anti-Trust Agreement Compliance?
Bigger penalties this time (Score:5, Informative)
It appears the penalty for Apple/Google/Et-al's anti-poaching deal a few years ago was not strong enough to send a message to other companies thinking of the same.
http://fortune.com/2015/09/03/... [fortune.com]
No surprises there (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
You would be wrong in a general sense. In California it is almost completely illegal. In other states, ymmv. It depends on whether they can give adequate pretext, I think a lot boils down to case law in various locales, IANAL. Texas isn't quite the wild unregulated west I thought it was, but it's also pretty much legal here.
There's also shades of illegality. A thing can be illegal in that it nullifies contracts, but end up being widely done in practice because the penalties are moot.
If there's ever been pro