Avoiding Common Teaming and Subcontracting Pitfalls
Class Action | Eleventh Circuit Reinstates No Hire Antitrust Claims Against Burger King
In August of 2024, I spoke in this column of the Biden Administration’s effort to use the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to ban most employment noncompete provisions. Those of you with a good memory may recall that I...more
Teaming and subcontracting have always been critical tools for contractors to pursue and win work with the federal government, and the current environment of contract consolidation places even more importance on these...more
A quiet but fast-accelerating change is reshaping a corner of competition law once thought to lie beyond its reach. What began as a campaign against monopolies of goods and services has moved, inexorably, into the realm...more
On 9 September 2025, the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) published new guidance on how competition law applies to recruiting workers, setting pay and other working conditions. The guidance builds on a recent string...more
On September 11, 2025, General Dynamics Corporation (“General Dynamics”), along with other naval manufacturers and defense contractors, petitioned the Supreme Court of the United States to consider whether an unwritten...more
Healthcare employers and the staffing firms who serve them should take note: federal authorities recently announced they will specifically target the use of noncompetes and other restrictive covenants in the healthcare space....more
Historically, employers’ workforce arrangements have not been an area of focus of antitrust authorities. However, in recent years, there has been a marked shift to bring certain types of employer behaviour front and centre...more
On August 8, 2025, Chief Judge Miranda M. Du of the United States District Court for the District of Nevada denied all motions to dismiss and held that defendants Western Range Association (WRA) and eight member ranches must...more
The New Jersey legislature is taking another crack at imposing significant limitations on noncompete agreements. Its first effort in this regard, a 2022 Assembly Bill which proposed mandatory notice periods, the statutory...more
On 2 June 2025, the European Commission (the Commission) fined Delivery Hero and its Spanish subsidiary Glovo a combined €329 million for operating a cartel in the online food delivery sector....more
Last month, Judge Jose E. Martinez of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida denied the Burger King Defendants’ (“Burger King”) motion to dismiss a putative class action alleging that its “No-Hire”...more
On February 13, 2025, the B.C. Court of Appeal dismissed an appeal from summary judgment in Latifi v. The TDL Group Corp., confirming that a claim for conspiracy to injure will fail where the predominant purpose of an...more
Four days before President Trump took office, the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) and Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) (together, “the Agencies”) under the Biden administration released their “Antitrust Guidelines for Business...more
On December 4, 2024, the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) ordered building services contractor Guardian Industries, Inc. (“Guardian”) to cease enforcement of no-hire provisions it included in customer service agreements with...more
In a divided party-line vote, the FTC recently charged Guardian Service Industries, Inc. (Guardian), a New York City-area building services contractor, with violating Section 1 of the Sherman Act and Section 5 of the Federal...more
President-elect Donald Trump recently announced that Republican Commissioner Andrew Ferguson will chair the Federal Trade Commission during Mr. Trump’s second administration. Commissioner Ferguson is also a known critic of...more
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC), in a 3-2 party-line vote last week, ordered a New York City area building services contractor, Guardian Service Industries, Inc. (Guardian), to rescind all "no-hire" agreements, including...more
The Belgian Competition Authority recently rendered a decision imposing significant fines totaling EUR 47 million on competitors guilty of a variety of anti-competitive agreements, including ‘no-hire’ clauses....more
As we previously reported, California recently enacted AB 1076, which reinforces the state’s broad statutory ban on noncompete agreements. The law took effect on January 1, 2024, and expressly codifies Edwards v. Arthur...more
In June of 2022, McDonald’s obtained a judgment on the pleadings, ending antitrust litigation challenging the legality of the no-hire restraints it previously included in its franchise agreements. More than a year later, the...more
Many employers require employees to sign restrictive covenants prohibiting them from engaging in certain activities after their employment ends. These prohibitions frequently include - opening or working for a competing...more
In Louisiana, restrictive covenants—known locally as “no competes”—are unenforceable by statutory default. The applicable statute declares, “Every contract or agreement, or provision thereof, by which anyone is restrained...more
Partner Jay Bogan recently discussed the Eleventh Circuit Reinstating No Hire Antitrust Claims Against Burger King....more
A federal appellate court held that Burger King and its franchisees may violate Section 1 of the Sherman Act (antitrust) by engaging in concerted action when entering into “no-hire” agreements. The appellate court reversed...more