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It is no secret that the Department of Justice (DOJ) has been largely unsuccessful in the criminal no poach cases it has brought to trial to date. Its most public loss came with the acquittals earlier this year of DaVita, a dialysis company, and certain of its executives in the District of Colorado. DOJ also lost at trial in another high-profile case in the Eastern District of Texas involving a physical therapy staffing company (although it secured a conviction against a company executive for obstruction of justice). But DOJ has pressed on, claiming victories at the motion to dismiss stage. Indeed, following its recent trial losses, Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Kanter, who leads the DOJ’s antitrust division, had this to say:
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Continue Reading DOJ Secures Its First No-Poach Win with a Guilty Plea by a Healthcare Staffing Firm

In January of this year, our colleagues Janene Marasciullo and David Clark wrote about federal criminal indictments issued for naked wage-fixing and no-poach agreements. They warned that these federal indictments should serve as a cautionary tale for HR and other company executives. The Illinois Attorney General’s office recently reinforced that warning at the state level.

An Illinois court recently denied a motion to dismiss an action by the Illinois Attorney General’s Office–Antitrust Unit against a manufacturing company and three staffing agencies alleging that the company helped the staffing agencies enter into “unlawful agreements…to refuse to solicit or hire each other’s…
Continue Reading Illinois Attorney General’s Office on the Lookout for Unlawful No-Poach Agreements

As reported here and here, in December 2019 and January 2020, the United States Department of Justice brought its first criminal charges against employers who entered into “naked” wage fixing agreements and no-poach (e.g., non-solicitation and/or non-hire)  agreements with competitors. According to DOJ’s 2016 Antitrust Guidance for HR Professionals, such agreements are “naked,” and, therefore, illegal per se, because they are “separate from or not reasonably related to a larger legitimate collaboration between competitors.”  Although DOJ recognized that such agreements may not be illegal per se when made in furtherance of legitimate joint…
Continue Reading The Pennsylvania Supreme Court Nixes a No-Poach Agreement Between Business Partners as Overbroad

Earlier this month, the U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”) announced that a federal grand jury in Texas indicted Neeraj Jindal, the former owner of a physical therapist staffing company, in connection with an illegal wage-fixing conspiracy to depress pay rates for physical therapists (“PTs”) and physical therapist assistants (“PTAs”) who travel to patients’ homes or assisted living facilities in the greater Dallas-Fort Worth area.  The indictment was something of a landmark for the U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”), which for years had promised that such criminal prosecutions were forthcoming in connection with its ongoing investigations of illegal no-poach and wage-fixing…
Continue Reading With Wage-Fixing Indictment, Department of Justice Initiates Long-Promised Criminal Proceedings