Samsung, LG Accused of Silicon Valley Anti-Poaching Agreement

By Kartikay Mehrotra, Bloomberg News

LG Corp. and Samsung Electronics Co. were accused in a lawsuit of conspiring to suppress wages by agreeing not to recruit each other’s employees in Silicon Valley, where allegations of no-poaching pacts have haunted technology companies for years.

A former LG sales manager claims the South Korean electronics makers had a “long-standing agreement” not to “solicit or hire one another’s workers,” including top brass at both firms. The pact, dating back to at least 2005, has eliminated competition between companies whose similar work cultures resulted frequent cross-hiring, according to Friday’s complaint in federal court in ...