U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh will preside over a series of lawsuits accusing animation and visual-effects studios of participating in an illegal anti-poaching and wage suppression agreement.
Koh has been the presiding judge over the High-Tech Employee Antitrust Litigation, which involves a 2010 U.S. Department of Justice antitrust action and a 2013 civil class action suit against Pixar, Lucasfilm, Adobe, Apple, Google, Intel, Intuit and eBay.
The judge rejected those companies proposed $325 million settlement as insufficient, a ruling the companies are appealing.
Now, she has agreed to take on an antitrust class action complaint filed by a former DreamWorks Animation artist with similar allegations against DreamWorks Animation, Disney, Sony Pictures Imageworks, Lucasfilm and others because the suits are related.
Koh also has assigned to her courtroom a similar punitive class action filed late last month by digital artist Georgia Cano against a number of the same studios as well as drawing in a few new ones, such as Blue Sky Studios.
