DOJ Challenges Employer No-Poaching Agreements As Per Se Antitrust Violation

David Kully is a Partner in Holland & Knight's Washington D.C. office
Paul Hitchcock is a Senior Policy Advisor in Holland & Knight's Jacksonville office

The DOJ's Antitrust Division sent a powerful message to the business community yesterday when it sued railroad equipment suppliers Knorr-Bremse AG and Westinghouse Air Brake Technologies Corporation (Wabtec) for entering into agreements "not to solicit, recruit or hire without prior approval, or otherwise compete for employees." The DOJ alleged that these so-called "naked no-poaching agreements" "denied American rail industry workers access to better job opportunities, restricted their mobility and deprived them of competitively significant information they could have used to negotiate for better terms of employment." As is often the case with civil antitrust investigations, the DOJ had negotiated a settlement with the two companies before going public and filed that settlement as a consent decree simultaneously