These companies will try very hard to settle before this goes to trial, because the emails that have been unearthed so far are not flattering. The companies lost their motions for summary judgment, which http://appleinsider.com/articles/14/03/28/silicon-valley-ant... is where the companies could have proven that their actions were not illegal based purely on the law and uncontested facts. Now, they'll face a jury trial, and in such a setting, in front of ordinary people, the appearance of wrongdoing can matter a whole lot. The emails produced so far in many cases come across as mean and callous, and that's going to play in front of a jury.

I think tech companies will have to take a lesson from this case and reexamine some of their approaches to dealing with engineers. Tech more so than many other industries seems incestuous in terms of how companies deal with the labor pool. This can result in policies that open these companies up to liability under antitrust as well as discrimination laws.