Apple-Google antitrust settlement wins US court approval

San Jose

APPLE Inc and Google Inc won preliminary court approval of a US$415 million antitrust settlement that would end a four-year battle over claims that they and other companies conspired to avoid hiring from each other.

The ruling brings to a quiet end a case which since 2011 produced dozens of controversial internal e-mails detailing anti-competitive agreements among the companies - and drew the ire of US District Judge Lucy Koh in San Jose, California, who derided and rejected an earlier US$324.5 million proposal to resolve the lawsuit as insufficient.