#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®
Taking the Pulse, A Health Care and Life Sciences Podcast | Episode 100: Marguerite Willis, Nexsen Pruet Attorney
OVERVIEW - In a recent landmark decision, the UK Competition and Markets Authority ("CMA") imposed a fine on sports broadcasting companies for fixing wages paid to freelancers. It is the first time that the CMA has issued...more
As a new policy statement from the European Commission (EC) treats wage-fixing and no-poach agreements as inherently anticompetitive (restriction of competition “by object”) with few possible defences, companies should...more
Until now, the European Commission's (EC) antitrust focus on labour-related issues has been timid. This may soon change. The EC has recently published a policy brief on labour markets, explaining that in its view, wage-fixing...more
Whilst not traditionally a focus of the Competition and Markets Authority (“CMA”), the UK’s labour markets now form one of the CMA’s strategic priorities, as outlined in its 2023 to 2024 Annual Plan....more
Nearly seven years after first announcing its intent to criminally prosecute employers and individuals for anticompetitive conduct in labor markets, the Department of Justice Antitrust Division (DOJ or Division) voluntarily...more
Corporates and deal teams should pay careful attention to drafting non-competes and other restrictive arrangements as UK, EU, and US regulators step up enforcement. Regulators on both sides of the Atlantic are placing...more
In a noteworthy upset last week, U.S. District Judge Victor A. Bolden dismissed the U.S. Department of Justice Antitrust Division’s latest – and largest – anti-poach case brought to trial yet, opting to decline sending the...more
Last year, the Competition Act was amended to make it a criminal offense for two or more unrelated employers to enter into wage-fixing or no-poaching agreements. As we discussed last summer, these new provisions come into...more
On January 18, 2023, the Competition Bureau published draft enforcement guidelines on wage-fixing and no poaching agreements, inviting interested parties to provide their comments no later than March 3, 2023. The draft...more
It has been a tumultuous year for the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) and its recent no-poach criminal prosecution strategy. No-poach agreements, which are arrangements between companies that place restrictions on the hiring...more
Antitrust and tech is in the legal news almost daily, and often multiple times a day. Here are a few recent developments with notable implications that may have flown under the radar: 1) renewed focus on gig economy issues;...more
Since the last edition of the QCC, there has been a series of dramatic developments in the criminal antitrust enforcement space in the U.S. from the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division (Division)....more
On April 14, 2022, a Texas jury returned five not-guilty verdicts on six charges considered in the first federal criminal wage-fixing prosecution. A day later, on April 15, 2022, a Colorado federal jury entirely acquitted...more
Recent actions by the Biden administration, including the Treasury Department’s report on the State of Labor Market Competition in the U.S. Economy, the Memorandum of Understanding between the Department of Labor (“DOL”) and...more
Over the past year, the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) has increasingly been hot on the heels of suspected anti-competitive labor violations. To date, the DOJ has brought a few actions against employers across industries...more
Criminal antitrust is burning a path in prosecuting illegal wage-fixing agreements in labor markets. The Justice Department warned companies over five years ago and now DOJ is executing on its warning. Over the last two...more
The Antitrust Division won a preliminary skirmish against two co-defendants who challenged the criminal indictment against them charging price-fixing in the labor market. District Court Judge Mazzant, in the Eastern District...more
It has been nearly a year since the U.S. Department of Justice's Antitrust Division (DOJ) made good on its promise to criminally charge companies that agree not to solicit each other's employees in so-called "no-poach"...more
Antitrust authorities are increasingly focused on anticompetitive agreements in the labour markets. In a recent speech held in Rome on 22 October 2021 ("A New Era of Cartel Enforcement"), EU Competition Commissioner Margrethe...more
Federal regulators are taking an increasingly hard line on what are normally ordinary business operations that regulators view as suppressing wages and competition. Antitrust issues can arise in every aspect of your...more
In October 2016, the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) and the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) issued an eleven-page joint guidance document entitled “Antitrust Guidance for Human Resource...more
On Friday, July 9, 2021, President Biden issued a sweeping Executive Order that could have far-reaching implications for businesses across a broad spectrum of industries. The Executive Order takes a government-wide approach...more
The Department of Justice, Antitrust Division (“DOJ”) continues to investigate hiring practices in a number of industries for potential antitrust violations as part of its effort to scrutinize, and in some instances,...more
The Justice Department’s Antitrust Division is pushing criminal enforcement against companies for illegal wage-fixing among competitors in the hiring market. ...more
Agreements between companies not to solicit or to hire each other’s employees (“no poach agreements”) have been in antitrust enforcers’ crosshairs for several years now. In 2016, the DOJ and the FTC released their joint...more