DOJ Loses First Wage-Fixing And No-Poach Cases As Juries Acquit

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.

Over the past year, the DOJ has filed a number of indictments based on alleged agreements between or among employers of different companies to not recruit or solicit employees of the other, often called "no-poach" agreements, as well as on wage-fixing agreements, which are price-fixing agreements and include agreements to fix salaries at a certain level. In two recent cases involving no-poach and wage-fixing agreements, the juries acquitted all defendants for their alleged conduct around hiring. While these losses by no means put an end to the DOJ's "commitment to prosecuting labor market collusion," they are a serious blow to the DOJ's intent to criminally prosecute such agreements.