AGG Talks: Antitrust and White-Collar Crime Roundup - Inside the World of No-Poach Investigations and Indictments
#WorkforceWednesday: ACA Preventive Coverage Mandate Blocked, Another No-Poach Loss for DOJ, and Employers Prepare for the End of the COVID-19 Emergencies - Employment Law This Week®
Trade Secret / Restrictive Covenant 2022 Year In Review (Fairly Competing, Episode 19)
Class Action | Eleventh Circuit Reinstates No Hire Antitrust Claims Against Burger King
Taking the Pulse, A Health Care and Life Sciences Podcast | Episode 100: Marguerite Willis, Nexsen Pruet Attorney
The Latest on Antitrust Compliance
III-42-The New Overtime Rule and Antitrust Issues With Your Non-Competes
Employment Law This Week®: Employee Mobility
II-31- The Changing 9 to 5 From 1980 to Today
Employment Law This Week®: Criminal Prosecution of Anti-Poaching Agreements, EEOC Publishes 2017 Data, Organizational Changes at NLRB, NYC’s “Cooperative Dialogue” Requirements
II-26 – Superbowl Concerns, Tax Reform/MeToo, Restrictive Covenant Crimes, and Expanded Religious Discrimination Theories
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
The European Commission (EC) has recently conducted unannounced antitrust inspections in the data centre construction sector, following concerns about potential collusion in the form of no-poach agreements. This investigation...more
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), Federal Trade Commission (FTC), and now state attorneys general, have set their sights on staffing companies in their evolving efforts to examine labor markets through an antitrust lens....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
In Deslandes v. McDonald’s USA LLC, issued August 25, 2023, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit overturned the dismissal of antitrust claims that challenged no-poach clauses in franchise agreements....more
Arrington v. Burger King Worldwide, Inc., No. 20-13561 (11th Cir. Aug. 31, 2022) – In October 2018, a former line cook of a Burger King franchise restaurant in Illinois, filed a class action complaint in the District Court...more
On August 17, 2022, Canada's Federal Court of Appeal agreed with a growing consensus of lower courts that section 45 of the Competition Act does not apply to "buy-side" conspiracies, such as agreements between employers with...more
A federal judge in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois has held that an antitrust challenge to a “hiring restriction [that] prevented” plaintiff employees “from taking a better-paying position with a...more
In what has commonly been referred to as the “Great Resignation,” nearly 50 million people voluntarily resigned from their jobs in 2021. The majority of those resigning sought a higher paying or better opportunity with...more
In July of 2021, President Biden issued Executive Order 14036, which affirmed the executive branch’s policy to enforce antitrust laws. Two aspects of the Order relate directly to employment law...more
Takeaways - ..The Biden administration’s recent executive order takes a hard line on limits to employment mobility, such as non-compete agreements. ..No-poach agreements—companies agreeing not to recruit each other’s...more
Are franchisees dependent offshoots of their franchisors, or are they standalone businesses capable of independent decision-making?...more
On April 13, the Federal Trade Commission’s Bureau of Competition and the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division (the Agencies) issued a joint statement reiterating that antitrust laws protect U.S. labor markets even...more
M&A deal teams should take note of heightened scrutiny of HR and employment practices by antitrust enforcers in the US and Europe. No-poach, non-solicitation, and wage-fixing agreements - arrangements between companies...more
Welcome to The Franchise Memorandum by Lathrop GPM, formerly known as The GPMemorandum. Since December 1997, The GPMemorandum has been presenting summaries of recent legal developments of interest to franchisors and companies...more
Since issuing the DOJ/FTC Antitrust Guidance for Human Resource Professionals in 2016, the DOJ Antitrust Division has remained active in enforcing and commenting on agreements among employers not to compete for hiring...more
Employers should assess whether their employment practices— including benchmarking, recruitment, and the sharing of information about employee compensation—comply with antitrust law requirements in the face of increased...more
For centuries employers have maintained a strong interest in trying to protect their most valuable asset, their key employees, from solicitation by and loss to other employers, especially competitors. As a result, “no...more
In order to avoid a lawsuit by the Washington State Attorney General, seven fast-food chains with store locations nationwide agreed to no longer enforce “no-poach/no-hire” provisions in their franchise agreements and to...more
The Attorneys General of ten states are investigating fast food franchisors for their alleged use of “no poach” provisions in their franchise agreements, according to a press release by the New Jersey Attorney General’s...more
Franchise agreements often contain provisions prohibiting the franchisee from soliciting or hiring workers employed by the franchisor or other franchisees. Such “anti-poaching” agreements have recently come under increased...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: At the recent American Bar Association’s Antitrust in Healthcare conference, the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) reportedly advised that it has open criminal investigations into agreements among healthcare...more
Agreements among companies to not hire each other’s workers are more risky than ever. The DOJ’s Assistant Attorney General for the Antitrust Division, Makan Delrahim, stated on January 19 that the division has criminal cases...more