Lucasfilm Settles Wage-Fixing Case

The force was with some of America's best animators. Lucasfilm, as part of a settlement with the Justice Department, has agreed to cancel a secret agreement with Pixar aimed at preventing a bidding war for top digital animators, the Christian Science Monitor reports. The firms had agreed to notify each other when offering jobs to employees of the other comapny and to not make a counteroffer higher than the initial offer, according to the DOJ's complaint.

"The agreement between Lucasfilm and Pixar restrained competition for digital animators without any justification and distorted the competitive process,” said the chief of the DOJ's anti-trust department. Six other technology firms, including Pixar, agreed to end similar recruitment practices earlier this year, AP notes.
(More Lucasfilm stories.)