Steve Jobs was championed by many as a genius and a visionary, but the late Apple co-founder also frequently tested the boundaries of the Sherman Antitrust Act with his hardline stance against poaching. Last week, Apple and other tech companies settled a class action lawsuit over the matter for $324 million.

The question of whether Jobs was “the driving force in a conspiracy to prevent competitors from poaching employees” is one of several questionable activities outlined by James B. Stewart in an article in The New York Times (via The Economic Times). Poaching is a practice of hiring away employees from competitors.

Silicon Valley giants including Apple and Google reached a no-poaching agreement with the Justice Department in 2010, which called for them to reduce or stop activity that could be deemed as poaching.

The Justice Department did not bring criminal charges against any executives, including Jobs, while he was still alive. But Herbert Hovencamp, a professor at the University of Iowa College of Law who specializes in antitrust law, called Jobs a “walking antitrust violation,” according to Stewart.

While Jobs was involved in controversies that ended up in the courts – including ebook price-fixing and accusations of backdating options – he was particularly offensive about poaching. He threatened Palm Inc. in 2007 with patent litigation “unless Palm agreed not recruit Apple employees”, although Palm’s chief executive told him that action was illegal. Jobs also emailed Google’s chief executive Eric E. Schmidt to ask that Google stop its attempts to recruit an Apple engineer – and Schmidt obliged.

“Any competent antitrust counsel would know that’s illegal,” said Hovenkamp, the Iowa law professor. “And they had to know they’d get caught eventually.”