I just received notice of a class action settlement with employees of a company I used to work for. The company enforced fairly industry standard (and probably very illegal) non-compete clauses on its employees that required them not to work for, divert customers to, or recruit employees to any competitor of theirs for 1 year after leaving the company, and could with potentially tens of thousands of dollars worth of RSUs from anyone who broke this.
Apparently about a year and a half ago, one of my former co-workers filed a class action suit against the company for this, and they now are reaching a settlement, to be divided up among the nearly 1,000 employees who had to sign these agreements. The amount of that settlement? A little less than $250,000. For perspective, this company reports about $600 million per year in revenue, so this amounts to about 3 1/2 hours worth of income for them for enforcing illegal agreements on us for years.
Out of this settlement, the lawyers will receive $150,000, $25,000 will go to administrative expenses, and that leaves $75,000 to be divided up among all the employees. So my share of this according to the notice will be about $72. This feels like a slap in the face to all of us who worked there and just a way to pad the pockets of the lawyers while giving my company a get out of jail free card for their uses of illegal business practices. There is an opportunity for us to object to the settlement before it is accepted, and I intend to do so. Can anyone advise on how to do this or point me to a good lawyer who can help?