Acquittals in the First Two Wage-Fixing and No-Poach Criminal Trials
Last month, the first two trials arising from the DOJ’s recent push to criminally prosecute wage-fixing and employee non-solicitation agreements both ended in acquittals on the antitrust charges. (Check here for our previous coverage of this prosecution trend.) In United States v. Jindal, the defendants were acquitted on charges of price-fixing, while in United States v. DaVita Inc., DaVita and its CEO were acquitted on charges that they engaged in no-poach agreements with competitors. Though the DOJ has publicly declared its intent to continue pursuing such prosecutions, these setbacks may affect how it approaches other alleged labor-market antitrust violations.