#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
On April 14, 2025, a federal jury convicted an executive in a wage-fixing conspiracy under the Sherman Act. This marks the first time, after many tries, that the US Department of Justice (DOJ) has secured a conviction in a...more
On April 14, 2025, a federal jury in Nevada convicted a home healthcare nursing executive on one count of conspiracy to fix wages and five counts of wire fraud after a 15-day trial. The verdict represents the DOJ’s first...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
Less than a week before the administration change from former President Joe Biden to President Donald Trump, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and Federal Trade Commission (FTC) released new guidance highlighting business...more
What the FTC’s investigation of McKinsey means for consultants tasked to compare wages or pricing - On July 23, 2024, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced that it has issued inquiries to McKinsey & Co. and seven...more
The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas recently granted the U.S. Department of Justice’s (“DOJ”) motion to dismiss the criminal charges it had previously brought against Surgical Care Affiliates, LLC and...more
The year 2023 will be remembered as a milestone for the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and Federal Trade Commission (FTC, and, together with the DOJ, the “Agencies”) in their efforts to expand antitrust enforcement to labor...more
The Department of Justice (DOJ) Antitrust Division — for the third time in the span of a year — recently failed to convince a jury that alleged agreements to fix or stabilize labor markets should be punished criminally. It...more
Antitrust practitioners from around the world gathered in Washington, D.C. the week of March 27, 2023, for a series of industry meetings, centered around the American Bar Association Antitrust Law Section’s 71st Annual Spring...more
On March 16, the U.S. Department of Justice Antitrust Division (“DOJ Antitrust Division”) announced that a federal grand jury returned an indictment charging a former health care staffing executive of fixing wages for nurses....more
Almost two years after indicting Ryan Hee for allegedly conspiring to allocate staffing and fix the wages of nurses, in violation of Section 1 of the Sherman Act (15 U.S.C. § 1), the government and Mr. Hee have entered into a...more
In 2022, antitrust authorities around the world were pursuing more investigations, bringing new types of cases, and making policy changes to spark even more enforcement actions. In the United States, the Department of...more
WHAT HAPPENED - - On back-to-back days this month, defendants charged and prosecuted by the US Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division (the DOJ) were acquitted on all Sherman Act charges in first-of-their-kind criminal...more
This week, the American Bar Association’s Antitrust Law Section kicked off its annual Spring Meeting in Washington, DC, which features updates from the antitrust enforcers and substantive discussions on today’s most pressing...more
On January 28, 2022, a federal grand jury in Maine returned an indictment charging four managers of home health care agencies with participating in a conspiracy to suppress the wages and restrict the job mobility of Personal...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
The end of 2021 continued to be a busy time for antitrust enforcers in the U.S. and around the world. Perhaps most notably, in November the Senate confirmed Jonathan Kanter to lead the U.S. Department of Justice’s Antitrust...more
The focus on using the antitrust laws to target labor markets has been gaining momentum for years, but the close of 2021 saw the trend hit overdrive with antitrust attacks on perceived harm to workers coming from all corners...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
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
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
Last week, a federal grand jury returned an indictment against a Nevada temporary staffing agency and manager who allegedly conspired with a competitor to fix wages for temporary nurses assigned to a public school district....more
With increased scrutiny of anticompetitive conduct in labor markets, companies need to adopt proactive compliance efforts to avoid prosecution. The US Department of Justice’s (DOJ’s) Antitrust Division recently announced...more
In the past month, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has made good on its 2016 threat, contained in its Antitrust Guidance for Human Resource Professionals (“Antitrust Guidance”) to bring criminal charges against people or...more
The Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) recently announced its first-ever criminal wage-fixing prosecution. The DOJ likely intends this case to be a wake-up call to companies, executives, and HR...more