Looks like trouble for Apple keep mounting up!

In an email released from 2007, then Apple CEO, Steve Jobs wrote to the former Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt directly. In his letter Jobs asked Google to stop interfering and trying to recruit an Apple engineer. In 2010, Google and Apple, were among other companies like Adobe Systems Inc, Intel Corp, Walk Disney Co’s Pixar and Intuit Inc jointly which agreed to a settlement by the US department of justice that bars them from poaching employees.

In the 2007 email from Jobs – the CEO directly asked Google to stop interfering. ‘I would be very pleased if your recruiting department would stop doing this,’ Jobs wrote in the letter. The letter was revealed from a class action suit between employees and only hints at the power the players wield in the Silicon Valley.

Jobs email subsequently went to Google’s HR director via Schmidt, who wrote, ‘Can you get this stopped and let me know why this is happening?’ The email started a chain reaction where the HR director immediately fired the Google employee who had revealed the details of the job to the Apple guy! Yes that’s exactly how it went down when the two opponents went head to head, terminating the poor guy ‘within the hour’. The HR Director also asked Schmidt to, ‘Please extend my apologies as appropriate to Steve Jobs.’ The fired Google employee might have a chance at redemption though if he goes ahead and wins the law suit against the two giants.

The defendants have both asked a US judge to dismiss the case because of the multi-lateral anit-poaching settlement, but so far the request has been denied by the judge who says the law suit will proceed ahead – albeit it might be split up into multiple potential class actions.