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
The Department of Justice Antitrust Division (DOJ) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) (together, the Agencies) issued Antitrust Guidelines for Business Activities Affecting Workers (2025 Guidelines) in January. The 2025...more
The Seventh Circuit recently revived an antitrust challenge to a clause in McDonald’s franchise agreements barring franchises from poaching other franchises’ employees. (See our previous coverage of antitrust challenges to...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
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
Are franchisees dependent offshoots of their franchisors, or are they standalone businesses capable of independent decision-making?...more
The recent antitrust attacks on no-poach clauses encourage insomnia among franchise lawyers. But is the attack serious or just a flash in the pan, soon to be extinguished? The insomnia began in the tech industry, where...more
In early February 2019, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced its intent to file statements of interest in multiple ongoing private lawsuits to clarify how “no-poach” agreements should be evaluated under the federal...more
Evolving antitrust treatment of so-called “no-poach” agreements continues to offer important guidance for company counsel and human resources professionals. Over the past two years, the Department of Justice (DOJ) has...more
Over the last 18 months, no-poach provisions in franchise agreements have drawn considerable attention from academics, state attorneys general, politicians, and the class action plaintiffs’ bar. Originally published in...more
To most people, “poaching” is a bad thing, connoting a mix of elephant hunting and mediocre eggs. But in labor and employment—where “poaching” means recruiting away another employer’s talent—antitrust regulators, legislators,...more
In the midst of a federal effort to ramp up antitrust prosecutions of companies agreeing not to recruit or hire each other’s employees special scrutiny – and criticism – has been directed toward the use of no-poach agreements...more
Franchise agreements commonly prohibit the franchisee from soliciting or hiring workers employed by the franchisor or other franchisees. This may take the form of “no-hire” or “no-switching” clauses that prohibit hiring each...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
Attorneys general in ten states and the District of Columbia have recently launched an investigation into the employment practices of eight fast-food franchises. The group sent a joint letter to the companies requesting...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
We reported last week that the attorneys generals of ten states are investigating several fast food franchisors for their use of so-called “no poach” provisions in their franchise agreements. ...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
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