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On January 23, 2023, a federal district court approved a pretrial diversion agreement between the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Ryan Hee, a former regional manager for a healthcare staffing company. The deal, which will likely result in Hee walking away without a conviction, is yet another lackluster result for DOJ’s thus-far largely unsuccessful effort to criminally prosecute alleged anticompetitive conduct in the labor markets.

Indeed, despite a spate of victories at the motion to dismiss stage (covered in our previous posts here, here, and here), DOJ has yet to secure a labor-side Sherman Act conviction at trial. Years after its initiation, DOJ’s effort has yielded only two convictions. [1] The pretrial diversion agreement with Hee does little to change this.…

Continue Reading With Pretrial Diversion Agreement, DOJ’s Antitrust Division Achieves Another “Meh” Victory In Its Continued Effort to Police Labor Markets

The Department of Justice (DOJ) Antitrust Division secured another labor-side antitrust prosecution win earlier this month in United States v. Patel, a case centered on an alleged no-poach and non-solicitation agreement among Pratt & Whitney and several of its subcontractors, when Judge Victor A. Bolden of the District of Connecticut denied the defendants’ joint…

A federal district court in Colorado last week handed the Department of Justice (DOJ) its second victory in its fight to criminally prosecute allegedly unlawful labor agreements, holding that alleged non-solicitation (or “no poach”) agreements among the defendants and their competitors constituted per se violations of Section 1 of the Sherman Act.

The ruling is…

One year after the first criminal indictment for wage-fixing, a Texas federal district court has ruled that an agreement to fix wages is a per se violation of Section 1 of the Sherman Act.

While over the last century the Supreme Court and lower federal courts have developed a robust body of case law interpreting…

No-poach and wage-fixing agreements – arrangements between companies seeking to prevent or limit the hiring of each other’s employees, or to suppress the wages and/or benefits of their respective current employees are not only currently under the spotlight in the US, but have also been subject to scrutiny by antitrust authorities in the European Union…

This month has so far seen two significant actions taken by the Department of Justice (DOJ) Antitrust Division (Antitrust Division) on wage-fixing and no-poach litigation and enforcement matters, which has shed additional light in an enforcement area that has needed it. Over the last few weeks, the Antitrust Division both served up its first indictment in a criminal wage-fixing case, and filed an amicus brief in a “no-poach” case to clarify its view of how the law should be interpreted relating to franchise agreements.
Continue Reading A Busy Month for DOJ on No-Poach/Wage-Fixing Enforcement Front

On Wednesday, November 18, 2020, head of the DOJ Antitrust Division, Makan Delrahim, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the DOJ and the Korean Prosecution Service (KPS) that supports increased cooperation between the two agencies in criminal antitrust enforcement and policy development. Delrahim was joined virtually by Prosecutor General Yoon from KPS for the signing ceremony.

In his signing ceremony remarks, Delrahim stated: “The Memorandum of Understanding is a shared recognition of the close ties between our agencies and our commitment to assisting one another in criminal cartel matters… [It] serves to memorialize and formalize what we have been implementing over the past few years.” He went on to highlight DOJ and KPS’s recent collaborations: shared enforcement training, cooperation and coordination on investigations, and exchange of information regarding policy initiatives.…

Continue Reading DOJ Antitrust Division, Korean Prosecution Service Sign MOU

A little over a year after its creation the Procurement Collusion Strike Force has announced its first public indictments. The Strike Force was created to focus on rooting out collusion and related schemes aimed at impeding competition in public contracting. As DOJ made clear when the Strike Force was created, DOJ views price-fixing in government contracting as a particularly harmful since it directly harms U.S. taxpayers. The Strike Force includes prosecutors from both the DOJ Antitrust Division and United States Attorney’s offices, the FBI, and Inspectors General from the Department of Defense, the U.S. Postal Service, and the General Services Administration.

A federal grand jury in North Carolina indicted Contech Engineered Solutions LLC and Brent Brewbaker, a former executive at the company for their roles in a nearly decade-long conspiracy to rig bids for aluminum structure projects funded by the United States and the North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT). Contech and Brewbaker were also charged with mail and wire fraud arising from acts in furtherance of the conspiracy. The case is part of a larger ongoing investigation into the aluminum structures industry.…

Continue Reading Procurement Collusion Strike Force Issues Its First Indictment

The Department of Justice Antitrust Division’s investigation into price-fixing by generic drug companies continues to remain one of the Antitrust Division’s most active matters. This week the Antitrust Division announced that it had indicted Teva Pharmaceuticals USA Inc. (Teva), the seventh company to reach a resolution with the Antitrust Division in this investigation. Teva is one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world.

Teva Pharmaceuticals was charged for its role in three separate conspiracies to fix prices for generic drugs. Specifically, it alleges that Teva, in three separate conspiracies, engaged in the sharing with competitors of pricing information for certain generic drugs in advance of price increase announcements. The first alleged conspiracy involved pravastatin, which is a cholesterol medicine, and other generic drugs; the second alleged conspiracy involved drugs used to treat and manage arthritis, seizures, pain, skin conditions, and blood clots; and the third alleged conspiracy involved drugs used to treat brain cancer, cystic fibrosis, arthritis, and hypertension. The Antitrust Division alleges that the conspiracies lasted for a little over two years and began as early as May 2013 and lasted until around December 2015. The estimated amount of gain/loss for each conspiracy is $200 million, $75 million, and $75 million, respectively.…

Continue Reading Another Generic Drug Company Accepts a Criminal Indictment Alleging Collusion

On June 22, 2020 the Department of Justice Antitrust Division (Antitrust Division) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced that they had signed an interagency Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to allow for more cooperation and communication between the two agencies.

Although these agencies have worked together in the past, this is the first time the Antitrust Division and the SEC have entered into a formal agreement. The agencies hope that this agreement will improve competition in the securities industry. As SEC Chairman Jay Clayton explained, “As competition is embedded in our securities laws, there are many policy areas where the missions of the SEC and DOJ’s Antitrust Division align, but where our respective areas of expertise differ. By formalizing the exchange of knowledge between our agencies, we aim to foster even greater collaboration and cooperation to ensure that we maintain the efficient and competitive markets that American investors rely on.”…

Continue Reading New Cooperation Agreement Between the DOJ Antitrust Division and SEC