Continuing class action litigation against Google and Intuit arising from agreements between those and other companies to refrain from hiring each other’s highly skilled technical employees — which agreements previously were the subject of a Department of Justice complaint asserting antitrust violations — serves to remind employers to carefully consider the costs and benefits of any no-hire agreements.
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DOJ Pursues Antitrust Claims Against Companies That Agree With Competitors Not to Recruit One Another’s Employees
By David J. Clark & Peter L. Altieri on
Posted in Non-Solicit Agreements
In an article published in the December 22, 2010 New York Law Journal (entitled “Nonhire Agreements as Antitrust Violations”), we discuss a complaint and proposed settlement filed in September 2010 by the Department of Justice against several well-known technology companies, which alleges that those companies entered into various bilateral agreements in which they agreed not to actively solicit each other’s highly skilled technical employees, and that those agreements violated Section 1 of the Sherman Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1. The DOJ filed a similar suit on December 21, 2010 against another well-known company. Accordingly, companies who have entered or are considering entering into such agreements should review their practices to avoid unwanted attention from governmental authorities.
Continue Reading DOJ Pursues Antitrust Claims Against Companies That Agree With Competitors Not to Recruit One Another’s Employees