SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — The U.S. Justice Department said Friday it has reached a proposed settlement with Apple Inc., Adobe Systems Inc., Google Inc., Intel Corp., Intuit Inc. and Walt Disney Co.’s Pixar on the companies’ agreements to not solicit each others’ workers for employment.

“The agreements challenged here restrained competition for affected employees without any procompetitive justification,” Deputy Assistant Attorney General Molly Boast said in a statement.

The Justice Department said it filed a complaint related to the agreements in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, alongside the proposed settlement, which would bar the firms from agreeing not to poach each others’ employees for five years.

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According to the DOJ, executives at Google GOOG, +0.01% and Intuit INTU, +0.79% agreed in 2007 that Google could not “cold-call” Intuit employees whom the search giant was interested in, while Google had a similar arrangement in place with chip maker Intel. INTC, +1.15%

Apple AAPL, +1.50% and Disney’s DIS, -1.05% Pixar animation studio executives agreed in 2007 not to cold call each others’ employees, while Apple and design-software maker Adobe ADBE, +0.22% had a similar arrangement that began in 2005, the DOJ said.

Apple and Google agreed not to cold call each others’ employees in 2006, according to the department.

Google said in a statement posted on a company website that even as it agreed to not cold-call employees at other technology firms, it continued to recruit them through online professional-networking sites and job fairs. “In fact, we hired hundreds of employees from the companies involved during this period,” Associate General Counsel Amy Lambert wrote.

Google also said it abandoned its “no cold-calling” policy last year.

Intel spokesman Chuck Mulloy said in a statement that the company “does not believe its actions violated the law, nor does the company agree with the allegations. The company is settling the matter because it believes it would not harm the company or its ability to do business.”

Intuit spokeswoman Diane Carlini said in a statement that “we have agreed to disagree with the DOJ on the issue of any wrongdoing in this matter.”

“The terms of the settlement will not have a significant impact on our business, so we have decided to resolve this matter,” she added.

An Adobe representative said in a statement that “we firmly believe that our recruiting policies have been consistent with the antitrust laws, and have in no way diminished competition for talent in the marketplace. Nevertheless, we have elected to settle this matter.”

A representative from Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The DOJ said in its statement: “Although the complaint alleges only that the companies agreed to ban cold calling, the proposed settlement more broadly prohibits the companies from entering, maintaining or enforcing any agreement that in any way prevents any person from soliciting, cold-calling, recruiting, or otherwise competing for employees.”

Officials added that they“continue to investigate other similar no solicitation agreements.”