In the first of what is expected to be a new wave of antitrust challenges to agreements among companies not to recruit or hire each other’s employees, the U.S. Department of Justice Antitrust Division (DOJ) recently announced its first prosecution under its 2016 guidelines on the subject.

On April 3, 2018, the DOJ filed and settled a complaint against two leading rail equipment companies, Knorr-Bremse AG and Westinghouse Air Brake Technologies Corporation (Wabtec), alleging that the companies agreed not to hire each other’s employees.