I'm not so sure about that. DEC may have simply decided to settle because fighting MS in open court would take a long time and deplete them of cash they needed very much (we all know how they ended up), Alpha was their hail-mary pass and having NT on Alpha could have strengthened their position.
Cutler didn't stole files, as they would be pretty useless. But DEC had feathers ruffled because Cutler uprooted a team he picked for his attempt to do a modern rewrite of VMS, which Digital refused to do.