Lee Berger

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A recent Seventh Circuit opinion by Judge Easterbrook held that no-poach agreements, absent valid ancillary restraints, can be per se illegal. Per se violations of the antitrust laws are inherently illegal—meaning no defenses or justifications are available. They have traditionally included conduct like horizontal price fixing, bid rigging, and market allocation. 

This is the first appellate opinion to reach the conclusion that no-poach agreements can be per se violations. As the Department of Justice Antitrust Division (DOJ) has spent the past seven years arguing that no-poach agreements are criminal violations of the antitrust laws, the opinion could empower the DOJ to bring more no-poach cases, given that it must establish an antitrust violation is a per se violation for criminal cases. This opinion also fires a warning shot at companies that use no-poach clauses in franchise agreements. Under the principles described in the opinion, many no-poach clauses in that type of agreement may be per se illegal.…

Continue Reading Seventh Circuit: No-Poach Agreements May Be Per Se Illegal

Yesterday (July 19, 2023), the DOJ Antitrust Division and the FTC released the long-anticipated proposed Merger Guidelines. As has also been long-anticipated, the proposed Guidelines reflect a much-stiffened enforcement philosophy. Throughout the text, the proposed Guidelines provide citations to Supreme Court cases from the 1960s and 1970s (and some even older) that will send…

In a yet another setback for the U.S. Department of Justice’s (DOJ) ongoing effort to prosecute labor-side violations of the Sherman Act, District of Connecticut Judge Victor A. Bolden granted a motion for a judgment of acquittal on April 28, 2023 in United States v. Patel. The order, which was entered before the jury…

The FTC has taken its strongest actions yet to limit private contract terms limiting employees’ ability to work for competitors, both issuing a proposed rule barring most noncompete agreements and filing complaints and consent decrees with three companies prohibiting their specific noncompete provisions. Prudent employers should evaluate their own employment contracts to assess the risk…

On January 23, 2023, the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) announced updated size-of-transaction thresholds for premerger notification (Hart-Scott-Rodino or “HSR”) filings, as well as new HSR filing fees and new de minimis thresholds for interlocking officer and director prohibitions under Section 8 of the Clayton Act.

The HSR filing thresholds, which are revised annually based on…

On October 31, 2022, Judge Florence Pan, now on the D.C. Circuit but sitting by designation in the District Court of the District of Columbia, delivered a “treat” to the Department of Justice (DOJ) and a “trick” to Penguin Random House by blocking its $2.18 billion purchase of rival publisher Simon & Schuster.  The opinion, which was released on November 7, 2022, represents a comprehensive endorsement of the DOJ’s monopsony theory of the case and a complete rejection of the defendants’ counterarguments.  After a string of defeats, the case marks the first win for the DOJ under the Biden administration in a litigated merger challenge.…

Continue Reading DOJ Blocks the Penguin/Simon & Schuster Deal:  A Signature Antitrust Win for the Biden Administration