On January 19, 2018, the Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust, Makan Delrahim, announced that in the coming months the Department of Justice (DOJ) expects to bring its first criminal antitrust charges involving agreements among competitors not to solicit each other’s employees – referred to as “no-poaching agreements.” Delrahim’s comments make it clear that going forward, the DOJ will treat wage-fixing and no-poaching agreements between competitors as per se criminal cartel activity; i.e., in the same way it traditionally treats price-fixing, bid-rigging and customer allocation agreements among competitor firms.
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