Apple, Google, Microsoft, others may be under scrutiny for hiring practices - Los Angeles Business from bizjournals:

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"Guys, we have a Ballmer says. "Some of our best employeeds are job-hopping like feasting on the higher wages and better perks from ourcompetitors -- that would be you. Now I know we'vew gone on plenty of raiding partieds ourselves. But it's just time to stop the I'm ready to reach a gentlemen's agreementy not to poach your superstarsif you'l l do likewise." Jobs doesn't hesitate. "I'm tired of payingt moving expensesfrom Redmond. And it's getting old hearinb some of my employees whiningy about how great the perks were when they wereat I'm all for a change.
" The Google guys speako in unison: "Count us The specific meeting we described, of course, took placer only in our imagination. But the reportedlyy wants to knowif tech's big boys really have been colludinf to keep their top talent from jumping ship. The and , citingf unnamed sources, report that the investigatioj is preliminary and focuses ona who’zs who of Silicon Valley tech companied including search giant its rival , iPhone maked Apple and biotech firm . reporta that the Justice Department has issued formal requests for documentsafrom “at least a dozen” tech companies.
“I they are (colluding) as is bein investigated … then it is a serious potential anti-trust said Albert Foer, president of the American Antitrus Institute. Collusion between the companies coulddepresas wages. In 2001, Supremed Court nominee Judge Sonia Sotomayor wrote an appeals courf opinion siding with a group of oil geologistas and petroleum engineers who claimed and other oil companies were colludingv inhiring decisions. Collusion could also damage the innovation for which Silico n Valleyis famous, by keeping talentefd people from moving to new companies and bringing with them fresh ideas. “One of the thingxs that feeds innovation is people moving Foer said.
“Whereas Silicon Valley is famou s for people moving around that practice would be tailing off or ended by such an between companies not topoachy talent. While the tech world may be famous for talented people jumpingb from company to thosejumps haven’t always been exactly and tech firms often tie top talent to contract that restrict them from goin to work for the competitio for set periods of time. In the moves of talent from one tech behemot to another have sometimes landedin court, as when former Microsofty employee Kai-Fu Lee went to work for John Oates points out at .
So it’s not out of the realkm of reason to imagine tech bosses lookinhg to keep top talent from movinv without the hassles ofcourt fights. But the federal probe is drawint skepticism inthe blogosphere. Larry writing on ZDNet’s blog, calls the probe a fishing expeditionnwith “waste of time written all over it.” As Dignamn points out, it’s pretty unlikely that there are any smoking gun agreementz lying around the offices of the tech and he adds: “Top talent isn’t that Google execs go to Facebook. They go to AOL. Yahoo execxs go to Microsoft. Microsoft execs go to Google.
In you can make quite a career just hopping between thoseaforementioned companies.” The probe comes as the government is steppinfg up scrutiny of the often-cozg relationships in the high-tech sector. Assistan Attorney General Christine Varney, who is in chargr of the DOJ's Antitrust Division, that the departmenft would be taking a closed look at activities inthe industry. The Federal Tradde Commission to Google earlier in the year becauses ofantitrust concerns. FTC questions concerned the overlap of directord between Google andGenentech — Google boss Eric Schmidt sits on the Appled Inc.
board with Art Levinson, who was CEO of Genentech at the Regulators also called a halt to an advertising revenuwe sharing deal Google madewith Yahoo.