Stryker (NYSE:SYK) and Zimmer (NYSE:ZMH) reportedly put to rest a bitter lawsuit filed by Stryker that accused its orthopedics rival of poaching employees and stealing trade secrets.

A trial in the case was slated to begin yesterday in the U.S. District Court for New Jersey, but lawyers for the medical device companies came to an agreement Oct. 4, Law360 reported.

The terms of the deal are confidential, Zimmer attorney Troy Brown told the website.

The agreement ends a case that saw its share of bitter exchanges between the parties. The accusations flew fast and furious in August 2011, according to court documents, with each side labeling the other’s positions as variously "ludicrous," "frivolous," "premature," "just another attempt to waste this court’s and Stryker’s time," "material misrepresentation of fact," "blatant gamesmanship" and once again "ludicrous."

The case, filed in April 2011, accused Zimmer of unfair competition via the poaching of a bevy of upper-echelon Stryker execs, including a vice president with SYK subsidiary Howmedica Osteonics. Zimmer enacted a scheme to recruit the execs by "willfully and maliciously targeting and soliciting Stryker employees for employment at Zimmer," according to the lawsuit.

“Zimmer’s scheme is simple,” the complaint alleges. “Using the recommendations of former Stryker Spine sales leaders it previously recruited, Zimmer first identified high-potential Stryker employees … and induced them to breach [their] contractual obligations by asking them to gauge their coworkers’ initial level of interest in an ‘opportunity’ with Zimmer.

“Once these trusted ‘ringleaders’ planted the bait, Zimmer would make contact with the new Stryker recruits, offering significant salary increases and additional perks to capture the attention of employees who had no prior contact with or interest in working for Zimmer."

The "ringleaders" then allegedly sought to pressure the recruits "by urging them not to ‘disappoint the team’ or ‘throw a wrench’ in the team’s plans to go to Zimmer en masse," according to the suit.

"Finally, when these subtle pressure tactics failed, one employee faced threats and intimidation," the lawsuit alleges.

The scheme led to "Stryker’s loss of nearly two entire sales branches in the West Region – the Arizona and Las Vegas branches," leading the Kalamazoo, Mich.-based firm to anticipate losing millions of dollars in sales from Zimmer’s "brazen" conduct, according to the documents.

In November 2012, Judge Dennis Cavanaugh denied Zimmer’s bid for summary judgment on a variety of the charges for both the Warsaw, Ind.-based firm and for the individual defendants. But Cavanaugh left the bulk of the case intact, ruling that Zimmer and its co-defendants would face a jury over charges that the company stole trade secrets and the individual defendants breached their contracts. Cavanaugh dismissed charges that were duplicative of the core trade secret theft and breach of contract claims.

"The evidence indicates that Zimmer hired Stryker’s employees en masse for the purpose of securing Stryker’s customers. The targeting of the Las Vegas and Arizona branches, and the coordinated switching of clients to branch managers, leaves a fact question as to Zimmer’s intent to interfere with Stryker’s prospective economic advantage," the judge wrote. "As to Stryker’s reasonable expectation to this advantage, the facts tend to show that had it not been for the actions of Zimmer and the coordinated individual defendants, Stryker would not have lost the customers they had, nor would they have lost the profits they did."

"Stryker has presented evidence that its employees, at both the Las Vegas branches and Arizona branches, were approached by Zimmer employees and they subsequently left the employ of Stryker to work for Zimmer," he wrote. "Stryker has presented sufficient evidence to create a question of fact that is proper for jury determination.

"Plaintiff has presented sufficient evidence such that a reasonable jury could conclude that Zimmer ‘knew or had reason to know that the trade secret was acquired by improper means,’" the judge wrote. "Based exclusively on the commutations [sic] between Zimmer and Stryker employees and the timing of the mass resignation, there is clearly a question of fact as to whether Zimmer acted intentionally."