The awards would probably not be much. From the initial three settlements for a total of $20 million, the lawyers have asked for incentive payments of $20,000 f

The awards would probably not be much. From the initial three settlements for a total of $20 million, the lawyers have asked for incentive payments of $20,000 for each class representative. (They have asked for $5 million for themselves, a standard percentage in these cases This kind of makes you question what is going on. The entire industry (?) can buy themselves out of genuine racketeering allegations for 2% of what FB spent on istagram. It would be interesting if the judge blocked this for being an un-reasonable discount. $20K per worker would likely be the minimum--per year--this type of policy would thwart. So again, this is off at least by a factor of 10 in terms of NPV in the context of a long-running conspiracy (ie, 20K from one thwarted job x at least 10+years). It does, however, emphasize the value for money of the "hush money" being paid. The defendants do not want jurors to hear that Google and Apple, in particular, are two of the most financially successful companies in the world, because that might encourage a jury to award a larger sum. This also seems dis-engenuous, given that a career with either firm can be worths millions (and often tens of millions) of dollars. That woud put into context the notion that something like $20k/fte is out of order in relation to the career damage that blacklisting a "switcher" into some form of "career path-dependency".