DOJ Brings First Criminal Wage Fixing Case | Insights - Sidley Austin LLP

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On December 10, the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice (the Department) obtained an indictment against Neeraj Jindal for alleged participation in a conspiracy to fix the wages of physical therapists and physical therapist assistants in the Dallas area.¹ The indictment is noteworthy because it is the first time the Department has brought a criminal case involving wage fixing. The case serves as a reminder that antitrust enforcers have increasingly focused on human resources issues, including no-hire and nonsolicitation agreements. In addition, the indictment alleges that the defendant obstructed an investigation of the same conduct by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

While antitrust enforcement is most often focused on illegal agreements among sellers, such as price fixing and bid rigging or customer or territorial allocation, enforcers also have challenged agreements among competitors for inputs into manufacturing a product or providing a service. As early as 1905, the Department successfully alleged that a group of meatpackers had formed an illegal cartel to reduce the price they paid for cattle. And the Department has recently said that “it makes no distinction between seller cartels and buyer cartels” in its enforcement.² In hiring and setting wage rates for employees, companies are buyers, just as they are buyers for any input into their product and service.

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DOJ Brings First Criminal Wage Fixing Case | Insights - Sidley Austin LLP
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