North America

23 June 2023: Competition Bureau Canada ("Bureau") amends its Competition Act expressly protecting competition in labour markets by prohibiting agreements that fix wages and restrict job mobility. The provision comes into effect on 23 June 2023.

30 May 2023: The Bureau publishes its Enforcement Guidelines on wage-fixing and no poaching agreements.

22 September 2023: The Mexican competition authority ("Cofece") announces, alongside the US Department of Justice Antitrust Division and Canada's Competition Bureau, the launch of a joint initiative to deter, detect and prosecute possible anti-competitive conduct, including labour market activities involved in the provision of goods and services related to the 2026 FIFA World Cup.

23 September 2021: The Cofece fines 17 football clubs and eight individuals for (i) setting a maximum salary cap for female players, and (ii) entering into a no-poach agreement by which a club would need the authorisation of another club in order to be able to sign a player, even if the employment contract had expired. The fines amount to €4.9 million approx.

January 2025: At the end of the Biden administration, the Federal Trade Commission ("FTC") and Department of Justice ("DOJ") jointly issue updated Antitrust Guidelines on Business Practices That Impact Workers, replacing prior guidance from 2016. The guidelines note that business practices may violate the antitrust laws when they harm competition among employers, which can lead to worse outcomes for workers and the broader economy. The guidelines specifically mention agreements between firms to fix wages, the sharing of information about wages, false earnings claims, and the use of coercive non-competes as practices that potentially violate the antitrust laws.

The FTC issues a policy statement clarifying that independent contractors, including gig workers, are shielded from antitrust liability when engaging in protected bargaining and organising activities, such as seeking better compensation and job conditions.

The DOJ issues a joint statement with the Department of Labor, Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) cautioning companies that the use of non-disclosure agreements deterring individuals from reporting antitrust violations may limit a company's eligibility for corporate leniency.

The FTC files a complaint and proposed consent order against building services provider Planned Building Services, Inc. alleging that Planned unfairly restrained trade with its "No-Hire Agreements." Under the consent order, Planned would be required to stop enforcing these agreements or communicating to any customers that Planned employees were subject to non-competes.

December 2024: The FTC files a complaint and consent order against building services provider Guardian Services Industries, Inc. alleging that Guardian's "No-Hire Agreements" in its customer contracts that banned Guardian's customers from hiring Guardian's employees constituted unreasonable restraints of trade under Section 1 of the Sherman Act and Section 5 of the FTC Act. Under the consent order, Guardian was required to stop enforcing these agreements or communicating to customers that Guardian employees are subject to non-compete agreements.

November 2024: Temporary staffing agency Metro Staff, Inc. enters a settlement with the state of Illinois resolving allegations that they entered into no-poach agreements and engaged in wage fixing with two other temporary staffing agencies. The settlement requires that they pay $1.8 million to compensate temporary workers impacted by the unlawful activity.

October 2024: The FTC issues its revised Premerger Notification Regulation under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act. Several labour-related provisions that were proposed in the draft regulation were eliminated in the final version of the rules. 

August 2024: The U.S. Department of Labor, the National Labor Relations Board, the FTC, and the DOJ sign a memorandum of understanding to strengthen competition by coordinating information used by antitrust agencies to evaluate the potential impacts of mergers on labour markets.

July 2024: The U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri deny a defendant department store's motion to dismiss, finding that the plaintiffs, homeware stores in Missouri, had adequately alleged that defendants used noncompete agreements to maintain market share in violation of the Sherman Act.

May 2024: The DOJ and the NCAA file a joint motion for the entry of a final judgment and permanent injunction to resolve an antitrust lawsuit alleging that the NCAA's transfer eligibility rule restrained the ability of college athletes to "engage in the market for their labour as NCAA Division I college athletes."

May 2024: In its lawsuit to block the proposed merger between Capri and Tapestry, the Federal Trade Commission relies in part on a labour market related theory of harm. It claims that the proposed merger would eliminate competition for employees that could result in lower wages and worse working conditions. The companies subsequently decided to terminate the deal.

April 2024: The FTC votes 3-2 to finalise and promulgate a rule banning most non-compete clauses in employer-employee contracts. There are two categories of non-competes that are not banned under the rule: (i) existing non-competes with senior executives; and (ii) non-competes in "bona fide" sales of a business. For more details on the scope, please read our alert here. Absent an effective legal challenge delaying or barring enforcement, the rule will go into effect 120 days following its publication in the Federal Register, which we expect to follow soon. The rule was struck down at the district court and is currently on appeal.

March 2024: The U.S. Supreme Court denies McDonald's petition for review of an August 2023 ruling from the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals reviving a 2017 lawsuit against McDonald's for allegedly restricting competition through no-poach agreements. The Seventh Circuit ruling remanding the case to the district court stands. 

March 2024: JBS USA Food Company and Tyson Foods Inc. enter into a settlement for $127.3 million, resolving claims that the companies conspired to suppress workers' wages through the exchange of compensation information.

November 2023: The district court for the Northern District of Texas grants a motion by the DOJ to drop its charges in its last remaining criminal no-poach case.

September 2023: The district court for the Western District of Kentucky denies a plaintiff's motion to certify a settlement class in a case challenging the no-poach provisions in a fast food company's employment contracts. The plaintiff proposed to certify a class of employees and managers, and award $5 million in damages, as well as injunctive relief. The court held that the record was "less clear" whether plaintiff had satisfied the adequacy, typicality, and predominance requirements to certify a settlement class, and invited the plaintiff to submit an amended motion for class action settlement. 

August 2023: The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals vacates the district court's prior dismissal of employee plaintiffs' claims (filed in 2017) against McDonald's for allegedly restricting competition through no-poach agreements. The FTC and DOJ had submitted a joint amicus brief in November 2022 supporting the plaintiffs' challenge to McDonald's "no hire"/no-poach franchise restrictions. The case is remanded to the district court for further investigation as to the proper standard (per se or rule of reason) for review of the challenged agreements. 

August 2023: The DOJ submits an amicus brief in support of an appeal to the Second Circuit by former employees of Saks Fifth Avenue, challenging the store's no-hire agreements with several "high fashion" designers. The suit was originally filed in 2020, and the district court granted the defendants' motion to dismiss in February 2023. 

August 2023: The FTC reaches a settlement with health information company Surescripts which, among other things, prohibits Surescripts from engaging in exclusionary conduct and executing or enforcing non-compete agreements with current and former employees. The FTC sued Surescripts in 2019, alleging that the company employed illegal vertical and horizontal restraints in order to maintain its monopolies within "e-prescribing" markets.

May 2023: DOJ reaches a settlement with poultry processing companies, resolving charges that the companies conspired to suppress workers' wages through the exchange of compensation information.

May 2023: The district court for the Southern District of Ohio approves $5.2 million settlement in suit over no-poach pact with three defence intelligence contractors.

April 2023: A federal judge in Connecticut grants the defendants' motions for judgment of acquittal, holding that the charged no-poach agreements were not per se illegal as a matter of law. The DOJ filed the indictment in December 2021, alleging that the defendants conspired to suppress competition in the aerospace industry by restricting the hiring and recruiting of engineers and other skilled-labour employees.

March 2023: The DOJ loses its third jury trial in its push to criminally prosecute labour-related antitrust violations when a jury in the district court for the District of Maine acquitted four home health care staffing executives charged with violating the Sherman Act through alleged no-hire and wage-fixing agreements. The indictment was issued in January 2022 and the DOJ survived defendants' motion to dismiss, but was ultimately unable to prove its case at trial.

March 2023: Insurance company Fidelity enters into a $3.5 million settlement agreement with the New York Attorney General to terminate any existing no-poach agreements and non-solicitation with competitors.

March 2023: The FTC orders two glass manufacturers and two Michigan-based security firms to drop non-compete restrictions that they imposed on their workers. These orders resolved the FTC's first-ever antitrust enforcement actions alleging anticompetitive use of employee non-compete provisions (brought in January 2023).

March 2023: Perdue Farms, a meat processing company, agrees to pay $60.7 million to settle a civil wage-fixing case that had been pending since 2019.

October 2022: The DOJ fines a health care staffing company $134,000 for engaging in a conspiracy with a competitor to fix the wages of school nurses.

April 2022: A federal jury in Colorado finds that DaVita (provider of kidney dialysis services) and its former CEO were not criminally liable for entering into no-poach agreements with competitors, as alleged by the DOJ.

April 2022: A federal jury in Texas finds former healthcare staffing executive (Neeraj Jindal) guilty of obstructing FTC Investigation into wage-fixing and sharing competitively sensitive information regarding physical therapists' rates. However, other two employees are found not guilty.