#WorkforceWednesday: ACA Preventive Coverage Mandate Blocked, Another No-Poach Loss for DOJ, and Employers Prepare for the End of the COVID-19 Emergencies - Employment Law This Week®
Taking the Pulse, A Health Care and Life Sciences Podcast | Episode 100: Marguerite Willis, Nexsen Pruet Attorney
2023 was a dramatic year for criminal antitrust enforcement in the United States. The Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”) garnered big wins: three convictions at trial,1 $267 million in criminal fines...more
In 2023, the DOJ continued its aggressive criminal antitrust enforcement agenda in health care, with mixed results in labor markets. In speeches, the DOJ asserted that its commitment to labor market cases has not diminished,...more
Nearly seven years after first announcing its intent to criminally prosecute employers and individuals for anticompetitive conduct in labor markets, the Department of Justice Antitrust Division (DOJ or Division) voluntarily...more
The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas recently granted the U.S. Department of Justice’s (“DOJ”) motion to dismiss the criminal charges it had previously brought against Surgical Care Affiliates, LLC and...more
Summary - Following a string of unsuccessful prosecutions in the labor space, the DOJ Antitrust Division moved this week to dismiss its last indicted criminal no-poach case, which had been pending against Surgical Care...more
After launching an initiative to combat no-poaching and wage-fixing agreements, the Department of Justice (DOJ) has racked up zero victories in its criminal prosecutions to date, including a recent loss in Connecticut....more
Previously relegated to purely civil enforcement, in the last year the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has increased its focus on pursuing criminal charges for anti-poach agreements between companies that attempt to...more
In another blow to the U.S. Department of Justice’s (DOJ’s) efforts to criminalize “no-poach” and “wage-fixing” agreements, a federal judge terminated the DOJ’s latest “no-poach” case mid-trial before jury deliberations....more
As featured in #WorkforceWednesday: This week, we examine the decision of a Texas district court to strike down an Affordable Care Act (ACA) mandate on preventive medical services and look at the U.S. Department of Justice’s...more
The Department of Justice (DOJ) Antitrust Division recently suffered another setback in its most recent effort to secure criminal convictions for labor-side violations of Section 1 of the Sherman Act. Having finally secured a...more
The Department of Justice (DOJ) lost its third jury trial in its mission to secure criminal convictions against companies and executives accused of labor-side antitrust violations on March 22, 2023, when a jury in Maine...more
On March 16, 2023, the U.S. Department of Justice announced another indictment of an individual, alleging price-fixing in the labor markets for health care services. This indictment of an individual in Las Vegas, Nevada,...more
Two of the Department of Justice’s labor-market criminal antitrust prosecutions have seen interesting recent developments. (See our previous coverage of this prosecution trend, reported on: Feb. 9th; May 2nd; Sept. 22nd; and...more
At the end of last year, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) secured a guilty plea for wage fixing, resulting in its first criminal conviction with Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Kanter saying: “[t]oday’s guilty plea...more
In 2022, antitrust authorities around the world were pursuing more investigations, bringing new types of cases, and making policy changes to spark even more enforcement actions. In the United States, the Department of...more
Each week, FP Weekly members receive a practical and cutting-edge checklist of issues to consider, action steps to take, and goals to accomplish to ensure you remain on the top of your game when it comes to workplace...more
The Department of Justice (DOJ) Antitrust Division secured its first win in a criminal enforcement of labor market antitrust violations on October 27, 2022, when nurse staffing company VDA OC pleaded guilty to violating...more
Antitrust compliance programs that are tailored to a company’s culture, line of business, and competitive conditions have long been worth their weight in gold. But as 2022 draws to a close, a looming economic slowdown and an...more
It’s hard to keep up with all the recent changes to labor and employment law. While the law always seems to evolve at a rapid pace, there have been an unprecedented number of changes for the past few years—and this past month...more
It is no secret that the Department of Justice (DOJ) has been largely unsuccessful in the criminal no poach cases it has brought to trial to date. Its most public loss came with the acquittals earlier this year of DaVita, a...more
A healthcare staffing firm in Nevada just pled guilty to conspiring with a competitor to fix wages for school nurses and agreeing not to solicit each other’s workers – the nation’s first-ever successful criminal prosecution...more
On October 27, 2022, VDA OC, LLC, (VDA) a Nevada health care staffing company, pleaded guilty to participating in a conspiracy to suppress and eliminate competition for the services of school nurses. According to the plea,...more
Despite back-to-back losses in the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) first-ever criminal no-poach and wage-fixing cases, the Antitrust Division (the Division) is not backing down from its enforcement focus on labor. In...more
Key Points - As part of the antitrust agencies’ public commitment to investigate and prosecute competitive harm in labor markets, the DOJ Antitrust Division fined three major U.S. poultry processors and a data consulting...more
The U.S. Department of Justice appears to be close to reaching a plea deal that would result in the nation’s first-ever successful criminal prosecution of a workplace-related antitrust matter – and it should send a clear...more