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Disney Agrees to Pay $100 Million to End No-Poaching Lawsuit

  • Company is final defendant in class action against studios
  • Workers alleged ‘gentlemen’s agreement’ to not recruit
A visitor purchases a balloon featuring the Walt Disney Co. character Minnie Mouse at Tokyo Disneyland, operated by Oriental Land Co., in Urayasu city, Chiba prefecture, Japan, on Friday, April 15, 2011. Tokyo Disneyland opened earlier than its 8 a.m. schedule today as about 10,000 people lined up to visit the amusement park that had been shut by the strongest earthquake on record to hit Japan.
Photographer: Kiyoshi Ota/Bloomberg
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Walt Disney Co. agreed to pay $100 million to resolve claims it colluded with other animation studios to not hire one another’s workers in California, where allegations of no-poaching pacts have plagued technology companies for the better part of a decade.

Disney and three of its units are the last remaining defendants in a class-action lawsuit alleging the studios conspired to suppress wages through a “gentleman’s agreement” to not recruit each other’s workers. Attorneys for Disney and employees submitted a court filing Tuesday seeking approval of their settlement.