U.S. Antitrust Authorities Now Characterize Employee Wage-Fixing & No-Poaching Agreements Between Competitors As Criminal Behavior

"Going forward, the DOJ intends to proceed criminally against naked wage-fixing or no-poaching agreements."¹ This weighty policy statement, issued on October 20, 2016, by the United States Department of Justice, Antitrust Division ("DOJ") and the Federal Trade Commission ("FTC"), marks a significant departure from the DOJ's past enforcement practices on corporate contacts affecting competition for employees. Until now, the DOJ has limited its enforcement actions in this area to civil proceedings, extracting consent judgments from offending companies. With the policy move, however, the DOJ (and FTC) is squarely placing the bullseye on human resources personnel and other corporate employees who agree with their companies' competitors not to compete in the marketplace for employees.