A former sales manager for LG Electronics Inc. in California filed suit against LG and Samsung Electronics Co., claiming the two Korea-based companies have an agreement not to recruit each other’s Silicon Valley employees, which has the effect of suppressing wages.In the suit, filed Friday in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, the former employee, identified as A. Frost, said the agreement extends to the “highest levels” of the two companies.

Mr. Frost said in the suit that he learned of the alleged agreement in 2013 when a recruiter contacted him on LinkedIn to fill a position with Samsung. Later the same day, according to the suit, the recruiter told Mr. Frost, “I made a mistake! I’m not supposed to poach LG for Samsung!!! Sorry! The two companies have an agreement that they won’t steal each other’s employees.”

The suit seeks class-action status on behalf of all LG and Samsung employees in California.

Both LG and Samsung declined to comment.

Allegations of anti-poaching agreements have embroiled other Silicon Valley tech companies. The U.S. Justice Department in 2010 settled civil charges that six big tech companies—including Apple Inc., Google Inc., Intel Corp. and Adobe Systems Inc.—had violated antitrust law by agreeing not to hire each other’s employees. The companies didn’t admit wrongdoing or pay fines.

In 2015, Apple, Intel, Adobe and Google, now part of Alphabet Inc., GOOGL agreed to pay 64,000 current and former workers $415 million to settle a class-action lawsuit around the same allegations. The companies denied wrongdoing.

Mr. Frost’s lawyer, Joseph Saveri, was one of the lawyers for the workers in the earlier class-action suit. He didn’t respond to a request for comment.

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