Pratt & Whitney settles engineers' no-poach lawsuit for $33 mln
Settlements in litigation total $60 million
Pratt was last defendant in the antitrust case
By Mike Scarcella
Sept 3 (Reuters) -Aerospace giant RTX’s Pratt & Whitney unit has agreed to pay $33 million to resolve a class action claiming it artificially suppressed wages for tens of thousands of current and former engineers.
The company disclosed on Friday it had reached a deal in principle in a filing in Connecticut federal court, where lawsuits were filed in 2022 claiming Pratt and five engineering staffing firms violated U.S. antitrust law by agreeing not to poach employees from each other.
The full terms of the deal will be presented to the court in the coming weeks, but a source familiar with the proposal said RTX had agreed to pay $33 million to exit the litigation. The settlement requires approval by U.S. District Judge Sarala Nagala.
RTX's Pratt & Whitney, which has denied any wrongdoing, was the remaining defendant in a lawsuit that was a consolidation of related cases. RTX declined to comment on Tuesday.
Attorneys for the plaintiffs at law firms Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan and DiCello Levitt did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Nine named plaintiffs, all former engineers for Pratt and other defendants, sued Pratt and the staffing firms after the U.S. Justice Department in late 2021 charged a former Pratt executive and others in a criminal conspiracy to restrict employee mobility.
After a trial in that case, a federal judge acquitted the defendants before the jury issued a verdict.
Nagala was assigned to oversee more than 20 similar civil lawsuits against Pratt and the other defendants.
The plaintiffs in the civil cases alleged Pratt led a conspiracy to restrict recruitment and hiring, keeping engineers’ wages lower than they otherwise would have been in a competitive market. The lawsuits sought compensation for a class estimated at 43,000 members.
In earlier proposed settlements, Belcan Engineering said it would pay $9.9 million, QuEST Global Services agreed to pay $8.2 million, Cyient agreed to pay $7.4 million, and Agilis Engineering settled for $1 million.
A fifth defendant, Parametric Solutions, is in bankruptcy and agreed to cooperate with the plaintiffs but not pay any monetary penalty.
Agilis, which had a leniency agreement with the U.S. Justice Department, admitted to the plaintiffs that the company participated in a recruitment-related conspiracy. The other defendants have denied any wrongdoing.
The case is Borozny v. Raytheon Technologies Corp, Pratt & Whitney Division, U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut, No. 3:21-cv-01657.
For plaintiffs: Daniel Brockett of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan; and Gregory Asciolla of DiCello Levitt
For RTX: Chahira Solh of Crowell & Moring; and John Cerreta of Day Pitney
Read more:
Engineering firms to pay $26.5 mln to exit antitrust lawsuit over wages
Aerospace managers acquitted in labor-related antitrust prosecution
Quinn Emanuel, DiCello firms will lead 'no poach' aerospace lawsuits
免責聲明: XM Group提供線上交易平台的登入和執行服務，允許個人查看和/或使用網站所提供的內容，但不進行任何更改或擴展其服務和訪問權限，並受以下條款與條例約束：（i）條款與條例；（ii）風險提示；（iii）完全免責聲明。網站內部所提供的所有資訊，僅限於一般資訊用途。請注意，我們所有的線上交易平台內容並不構成，也不被視為進入金融市場交易的邀約或邀請 。金融市場交易會對您的投資帶來重大風險。
所有缐上交易平台所發佈的資料，僅適用於教育/資訊類用途，不包含也不應被視爲適用於金融、投資稅或交易相關諮詢和建議，或是交易價格紀錄，或是任何金融商品或非應邀途徑的金融相關優惠的交易邀約或邀請。
本網站的所有XM和第三方所提供的内容，包括意見、新聞、研究、分析、價格其他資訊和第三方網站鏈接，皆爲‘按原狀’，並作爲一般市場評論所提供，而非投資建議。請理解和接受，所有被歸類為投資研究範圍的相關内容，並非爲了促進投資研究獨立性，而根據法律要求所編寫，而是被視爲符合營銷傳播相關法律與法規所編寫的内容。請確保您已詳讀並完全理解我們的非獨立投資研究提示和風險提示資訊，相關詳情請點擊 這裡查看。
