The First Chinese Court Decision on Antitrust Issues in Labor Markets

April 19, 2022

Antitrust enforcement in labor markets has become a focus of the U.S. antitrust regulators in recent years, with particular scrutiny on agreements between employers not to recruit or solicit each other’s employees—so-called “no poach” agreements.

In a recent decision, a court in China held no‑poach and employee compensation-fixing agreements to be illegal, the first such court decision in the country.  The court’s decision, however, reveals the difficulties in analyzing no-poach agreements within China’s existing antitrust regime and analytical framework.  This article provides an overview of the Chinese court’s reasoning in its recent decision and a comparative assessment to the approach in the United States.

Please click here to continue reading on the Cleary Antitrust Watch blog.

This post was republished by CPI.

The article also appeared in the LexisNexis July 2022 Antitrust Report.