Lisa Phelan spoke to Bloomberg Law for an article about
a former aerospace company manager and five other aerospace
industry executives who convinced a judge to acquit them of
criminal charges brought by the Justice Department (DOJ) that they
agreed not to hire each other's workers.
According to Lisa, it's rare for a judge to grant a
mid-trial motion for acquittal in a criminal antitrust case. She
added that the judge considering the motion must view all evidence
already presented in the most favorable possible light for the
government.
"The implication for this is that the DOJ may have a real
challenge trying to bring no poach cases that involve only a
non-solicitation agreement (one company will not proactively seek
to recruit another company's employees) as criminal per
se offenses," Lisa said. "A strict no hire agreement
may be more likely to be accepted by courts as an appropriate
criminal allocation, and thus per se, offense."
