back to article eBay hit with antitrust suit over hiring practices

The US Department of Justice and the State of California both filed suit against eBay on Friday, alleging that the online marketplace entered into an illegal, anticompetitive hiring pact with tax and financial software maker Intuit. As reported by Bloomberg, the lawsuit charges eBay with developing an "evolving handshake" …

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  1. Wallyb132
    FAIL

    Meg Whittman

    Well it looks like maybe the DOJ now needs to start looking at HP...

    1. Captain Save-a-ho
      Terminator

      Re: Meg Whittman

      Why bother? HP isn't even competitive to keep its own people, let alone hire good people away from other companies.

      At this point, I'm expecting HP to die on the vine soon enough, so I'm sure the DoJ has other evil corporations to look after.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The only reason the government cares is that they view they lost some tax money in the process.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Childcatcher

    It's OK, eBay will make the money back

    Collecting their cut on boxes of Twinkies going for $10-$20 a pop now that Hostess is going out of business.

    Seriously, Twinkies are going for $10+ a box!! Maybe the Justice Department should look into that :)

    "Won't someone think of the children!" icon, because future generations of American children will miss out on a dietary rite of passage....

  4. Purlieu

    Here

    Of course this never happens in the Uk

    1. This post has been deleted by its author

    2. Wensleydale Cheese

      Re: Here (in the UK)

      I heard rumours of exactly this happening in the UK about 30 years ago.

      I have no idea whether it was illegal then, nor what the current position is under UK law.

  5. John H Woods Silver badge

    Pseudofeudalism

    What on earth do the people who draw up these agreements think they're doing? They think they are our lords and masters, that's what. Do you think for a moment that we could tie CEOs to particular organisations the same way without a shitstorm about how the economy needs them to be free to move from company to company?

    The fact that they realise how bad that would be for them, and indeed the very principles of free-market capitalism, means that the only explanation for them trying to bind us to our corporate masters is that they actually think they are a different class of people to us. Well, maybe they are, but probably not in the way they think they are.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    In UK?

    Why the UK government does not take similar action here!?! There is a deadly nexus between various companies and also the recruitment industry. UK government should seriously look into this matter.

  7. tonysmith

    Nice, first they don't pay their share of taxes and now the big companies are up to this?!

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Consequences??

    So the consequences for the companies that have engaged in this practice is that they sure shouldn't do it again!

    What the hell kind of message does that send? Go ahead and try to make these kinds of deals, you get a free pass on the first one.

    The consequence should have been a forced bonus to all employees (who were not mentioned as participants in the making of this deal or can be reasonably held accountable for such a deal having taken place) of $X where X is somehow related to the pay received by the company CEO. Say CEO salary divided by number of employees?

    1. Paul 129
      Devil

      Re: Consequences??

      Big fine for the company. Share holders sue the directors for malpractice, would be a nice start. No Idea how practical it would be in reality, but it would sure as hell be entertaining.

      "No i'm not incompetent"

      "So you entered into this agreement knowing it was illegal, unethical, and had the potential to cost your sharegholders millions?"

      "Ummmm...What was that first option again?"

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Why do companies do this?

    These practices are plain and simple a mechanism to keep salaries lower as people cannot hop between companies getting pay rises.

    More and more permanent employees are realising that the only way to get a decent (and in some cases any) pay rise is move job. Anything that the corpocracy can do to prevent this they will do until they are caught out.

    They dress it up as trying to prevent poaching (usually already high paid employees) but the real reason is to prevent "salary hopping" by lower level employees.

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