Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB)’s Chief Operating Office Sheryl Sandberg may get the opportunity testify against other companies like Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG), Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC), and Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) in an antitrust lawsuit. Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) is not involved with the matter.
On Monday, Judge Lucy Koh gave a ruling that a disposition would take place during late April. The former three companies mentioned are defendants in this particular case.
Prior to joining Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) in 2008, Sandberg worked for Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) as the vice president for operations and global sales. In late March, the search engine giant presented six documents to the court and one of those documents was Sandberg’s agreement with the company.
It isn’t clear if Koh wants to proceed with turning the entire case into a class-action lawsuit. The other companies involved in this lawsuit include Intuit, Disney, and Adobe.
This particular ruling is over a 2011 lawsuit that regards non-solicitation agreements. In other words, these companies were keeping their wages down as part of non-poaching agreement. Such agreement would prevent one company from trying to entice an employee or group of employees from another company to come and work for them. As Joel Rosenblatt for Bloomberg explained, ” Plaintiffs argue their discovery has confirmed that senior officers at the companies personally entered into non- solicitation agreements to eliminate competition for each other’s employees, kept the pacts hidden from the workers, supervised the implementation of the plans and policed each other.”
On behalf of the plantiffs, the lawyers asked to schedule Sheryl Sandberg’s deposition after the March 29th deadline. Sandberg and Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) needed more time to gather facts as they didn’t get the earlier subpoena.
Whether Sandberg has some solid information on Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) or not remains to be seen. So far, there is no word on whether former employees for Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) will have to come to court to testify.
