L ABOR & EMPLOYMENT
Not Guilty
Juries Acquit in First Criminal Antitrust No-Poaching and Wage-Fixing Trials By ANN O’BRIEN AND LINDSEY COLLINS
T
he Antitrust Division’s quest to bring criminal antitrust cases involving the labor market has resulted in two recent losses. These were the first criminal antitrust no-poaching of employees and wage-fixing trials. On April 15, a jury in Denver acquitted DaVita Inc., a dialysis
10
TODAYSGENERALCOUNSEL.COM JUNE 202 2
company, and DaVita’s former CEO of charges that they had violated Section 1 of the Sherman Antitrust Act by agreeing with other companies and executives not to solicit or hire each other’s employees. Just the day before, on April 14, a jury in Texas acquitted a former owner and director of a
physical therapy staffing company of wage fixing. These defeats come after a years-long effort by the Division to treat labor market antitrust cases as per se criminal conduct, akin to wage fixing — a first in the 132-year history of the Sherman Act. In these two verdicts, the BACK TO CONTENTS
