Steve Jobs sent a direct email to Eric Schmidt asking the former Google CEO to stop his recruiting department from poaching Apple engineers, according to a Reuters report.

The email surfaced in a court filing for a proposed class action suit brought by five software engineers against Apple, Google, Adobe, Intel, Intuit, and Pixar. The suit accuses the companies of conspiring to keep employee compensation low by eliminating competition for skilled labor.

Jobs emailed Schmidt in March 2007 about an attempt to recruit an Apple engineer writing, "I would be very pleased if your recruiting department would stop doing this."

Schmidt forwarded Job's email on saying, "Can you get this stopped and let me know why this is happening?" Schmidt wrote.

Google's staffing director responded that the employee who tried to recruit the Apple engineer "will be terminated within the hour", adding "please extend my apologies as appropriate to Steve Jobs."

The companies named in the suit tried to have it dismissed by arguing that they engaged in bilateral anti-poaching deals to protect collaboration; however, U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh said the civil lawsuit will proceed.

(Via iClarified)