#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
Labor markets have been a focus of antitrust regulators at the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Federal Trade Commission (FTC) since the Obama administration. Indications are that enforcers will be even more aggressive across...more
2023 was a dramatic year for criminal antitrust enforcement in the United States. The Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”) garnered big wins: three convictions at trial,1 $267 million in criminal fines...more
In 2023, the DOJ continued its aggressive criminal antitrust enforcement agenda in health care, with mixed results in labor markets. In speeches, the DOJ asserted that its commitment to labor market cases has not diminished,...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
Summary - Following a string of unsuccessful prosecutions in the labor space, the DOJ Antitrust Division moved this week to dismiss its last indicted criminal no-poach case, which had been pending against Surgical Care...more
Le 30 mai 2023, le Bureau de la concurrence du Canada (le « Bureau ») a publié des Lignes directrices (les « Lignes directrices ») afin de fournir des précisions sur sa nouvelle approche en matière d’application de la loi à...more
On May 30, 2023, Canada’s Competition Bureau (Bureau) published Enforcement Guidelines (Guidance) to provide clarity on its enforcement approach to the new criminal prohibition against wage-fixing and no-poach agreements that...more
After launching an initiative to combat no-poaching and wage-fixing agreements, the Department of Justice (DOJ) has racked up zero victories in its criminal prosecutions to date, including a recent loss in Connecticut....more
Previously relegated to purely civil enforcement, in the last year the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has increased its focus on pursuing criminal charges for anti-poach agreements between companies that attempt to...more
A Ruling and Order issued on April 28, 2023 by the U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut in United States v. Patel, et al. ran the government’s losing streak to four failed trials seeking to criminally prosecute...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
Two of the Department of Justice’s labor-market criminal antitrust prosecutions have seen interesting recent developments. (See our previous coverage of this prosecution trend, reported on: Feb. 9th; May 2nd; Sept. 22nd; and...more
At the end of last year, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) secured a guilty plea for wage fixing, resulting in its first criminal conviction with Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Kanter saying: “[t]oday’s guilty plea...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
The Department of Justice (DOJ) Antitrust Division secured its first win in a criminal enforcement of labor market antitrust violations on October 27, 2022, when nurse staffing company VDA OC pleaded guilty to violating...more
In another example of the Department of Labor (DOJ) pursuing criminal anti-trust cases against employers throughout the country, on October 27th, 2022, VDA OC, LLC (formerly Advantage On Call or AOC), a healthcare staffing...more
It’s hard to keep up with all the recent changes to labor and employment law. While the law always seems to evolve at a rapid pace, there have been an unprecedented number of changes for the past few years—and this past month...more
A healthcare staffing firm in Nevada just pled guilty to conspiring with a competitor to fix wages for school nurses and agreeing not to solicit each other’s workers – the nation’s first-ever successful criminal prosecution...more
The DE OFCCP Week in Review (WIR) is a simple, fast and direct summary of relevant happenings in the OFCCP regulatory environment, authored by experts John C. Fox, Candee Chambers and Cynthia L. Hackerott....more
On October 27, 2022, VDA OC, LLC, (VDA) a Nevada health care staffing company, pleaded guilty to participating in a conspiracy to suppress and eliminate competition for the services of school nurses. According to the plea,...more
Despite back-to-back losses in the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) first-ever criminal no-poach and wage-fixing cases, the Antitrust Division (the Division) is not backing down from its enforcement focus on labor. In...more
The U.S. Department of Justice appears to be close to reaching a plea deal that would result in the nation’s first-ever successful criminal prosecution of a workplace-related antitrust matter – and it should send a clear...more
Last month, the first two trials arising from the DOJ’s recent push to criminally prosecute wage-fixing and employee non-solicitation agreements both ended in acquittals on the antitrust charges. In United States v. Jindal,...more
Last week, the United States Department of Justice (“DOJ”) Antitrust Division suffered back-to-back trial defeats in its recent enforcement initiative to use the Sherman Act to stop employers from using allegedly...more
The Department of Justice’s first criminal wage-fixing and no-poach cases ended in acquittals, but we don’t expect this will lessen the DOJ’s scrutiny on competition in labor markets....more