US: Oracle dodges suit over No-Poaching deals

Oracle joined Microsoft on Tuesday in successfully dodging an antitrust class action over its agreements not to recruit workers from other tech firms.

U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh dismissed the suit with prejudice on Tuesday, finding the employees failed to show Oracle entered into any “no-poaching” deals after the four-year statute of limitations clock started ticking in October 2010.

Lead plaintiff Greg Garrison sued Oracle in October 2014, three days before lead plaintiff Deserae Ryan sued Microsoft on similar antitrust claims.

Just as she ruled in the suit against Microsoft this past November, Koh again rejected theories that criminal investigations, lawsuits against co-conspirators, alleged concealment of deals and renewing of agreements froze the limitations period.

“Although plaintiffs allege that Oracle continued to enter into new secret agreements and add companies to the ‘no-hire’ list ‘well into 2012,’ plaintiffs fail to identify a single new agreement after 2009,” Koh wrote in her 51-page ruling.

Koh found a Justice Department probe into Oracle’s anticompetitive deals from 2009 to October 2014 did not freeze the limitations period. The judge pointed to Ninth Circuit precedent that holds the limitations period begins tolling when the government files a complaint, not when it opens an investigation.
The DOJ never filed a complaint against Oracle.

Koh said the Justice Department’s antitrust lawsuits against Adobe, Lucasfilm and eBay also failed to stop the clock because none of those complaints mentioned Oracle by name.

Claims that Oracle lied about its commitment to obeying antitrust laws in public Securities and Exchange Commission filings and its employee handbook were also found insufficient to allege fraudulent concealment.

Full content: Courthouse News Service

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