No-poach agreements in the crosshairs: antitrust enforcement takes aim

Competition authorities across the European Union (EU) have dramatically expanded antitrust enforcement into labour markets, targeting no-poach and wage-fixing agreements with unprecedented intensity. In June 2025, the European Commission issued its landmark Delivery Hero / Glovo decision: a EUR 329 million fine marking the first ever EU sanction of a labour market cartel (see our June 2025 update). This has triggered a wave of further national enforcement, with EU Member States' competition authorities taking action or launching investigations in the months since. The same enforcement trend can be seen in other jurisdictions, such as the United Kingdom and the United States (where no-poach agreements have been on the authorities' agenda for over a decade).

What you need to know

• National enforcement surge: since the European Commission's Delivery Hero / Glovo decision, competition authorities in France (EUR 29.5 million fine), Romania (EUR 32.15 million fine) and Poland (charges against 32 companies) have taken action, with investigations ongoing in Portugal, Italy and the Netherlands.
• No sector is immune: enforcement actions span diverse industries from food delivery and automotive to IT consulting and sports broadcasting.
• Private enforcement risk: affected employees may now bring damages claims before national courts, with the competition authorities' finding serving as binding proof of infringement.
• Compliance action required: companies should extend antitrust compliance training to HR departments, recruitment teams and personnel who participate in industry forums or professional networks.

No-poach agreements: a quick primer

No-poach agreements are direct or indirect arrangements between employers to refrain from recruiting or hiring each other's employees. They come in various forms. For instance:

• "no-hire" agreements prohibit both active and passive hiring of another party's employees; and
• "non-solicit" agreements only prevent actively approaching another party's employees with job offers.

These agreements (whether sector-wide or bilateral, unilateral or reciprocal, written or unwritten) may violate competition law.

No-poach agreements may cause significant economic harm to employees and markets. For employees, these arrangements can suppress wages and limit career mobility. Employees are prevented from leveraging outside offers to negotiate better pay and may never learn of opportunities for which they would otherwise be qualified. These effects are compounded by secrecy: workers typically have no idea that such agreements exist, and therefore cannot factor them into their employment decisions or challenge them. For markets more broadly, reduced labour mobility leads to inefficient allocation of talent, lower productivity and diminished innovation.

No room for doubt: the EU's position

Recognising these harms, the European Commission included a reference to labour markets agreements in the revised EU Horizontal Guidelines, published a policy brief setting out how it was likely to view no-poach agreements and has followed up with enforcement action.

Legal framework

Article 101 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) is the EU's core antitrust provision. It prohibits agreements between companies that restrict competition. The EU Horizontal Guidelines provide guidance on how the European Commission interprets this rule when it comes to agreements between competitors.

In July 2023, the revised EU Horizontal Guidelines entered into force. For the first time, these Guidelines explicitly addressed labour market agreements, classifying no-poach agreements as "by object" restrictions. This classification is significant: a "by object" restriction is considered harmful to competition by its very nature. The European Commission does not need to prove that the agreement has actual anticompetitive effects: the mere existence of such an agreement is sufficient to establish a violation of Article 101 TFEU.

What about exemptions?

The European Commission did not stop there. In May 2024, it published a Competition Policy Brief further clarifying its position (see our May 2024 update). In the brief, the European Commission confirmed that it would be very difficult to justify a no-poach agreement under the individual exemption set out in Article 101(3) TFEU. Companies sometimes argue that no-poach clauses are necessary to protect training investments or trade secrets. The European Commission made clear that such arguments are unlikely to succeed, as less restrictive alternatives (such as garden leave clauses or contractual confidentiality obligations) are usually available.

That said, not all restrictions on hiring are prohibited. Under the European Commission's Ancillary Restraints Notice, non-solicitation provisions that are limited in scope and directly linked to the implementation of a transaction (such as an M&A deal or a joint venture) may fall outside Article 101 TFEU where they are objectively necessary to protect the value of the target business or to make the collaboration viable.

A record-breaking first fine

The landmark moment came in June 2025, when the European Commission issued its Delivery Hero / Glovo decision, imposing fines totalling EUR 329 million on the two food delivery companies (see our June 2025 update). Between 2018 and 2022, the two companies agreed not to poach each other's employees, while also exchanging competitively sensitive information and allocating geographic markets. The decision was groundbreaking in two respects: (i) it represented the European Commission's first enforcement action against agreements restricting employee mobility between competing firms, and (ii) it was the first case in which the European Commission found that a minority equity stake had been used to underpin and reinforce cartel behaviour.

Current enforcement trends: accelerating across continents

Examples from the EU

In the EU, national competition authorities can enforce Article 101 TFEU directly, and most Member States also have equivalent provisions under their domestic competition laws. Several authorities have proactively signalled their interest in this area by publishing guidance and best practice documents. The European Commission's Delivery Hero decision was followed by a wave of enforcement at national level:

• In June 2025, just days after the Delivery Hero decision, the French competition authority (Autorité de la concurrence) fined three engineering and IT consulting companies a total of EUR 29.5 million for no-poach gentlemen's agreements. One company received full immunity under the leniency programme for reporting the violation to the authority.
• In July 2025, the Polish competition authority (Urząd Ochrony Konkurencji i Konsumentów) pressed charges against a major retailer and 32 transport companies, as well as eight individuals, for suspected collusion restricting drivers' ability to change employers.
• In September 2025, the Portuguese competition authority (Autoridade da Concorrência) issued a Statement of Objections to three beverage industry companies for suspected no-poach agreements spanning 2016 to 2023, following a leniency application.
• In January 2026, the Romanian Competition Council imposed fines totalling EUR 32.15 million on eight companies in the automotive and engineering services sector for no-poach agreements concerning specialised workforce. This is Romania's first-ever sanction of a labour market cartel.
• In the same month, the Italian competition authority (Autorità Garante della Concorrenza e del Mercato) opened an investigation into suspected no-poach agreements among several global suppliers of automated machinery and packaging, following a whistleblower complaint.
• In February 2026, the Dutch competition authority (Autoriteit Consument & Markt) launched an investigation into an IT company for suspected agreements with other companies not to approach or hire each other's employees.

Other Examples

The United States was among the first to express an interest in competition law issues in labour markets. In 2016, the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) put businesses on notice that no-poach and wage-fixing agreements could be prosecuted as criminal violations. A decade later, that message is still being reinforced:

• In December 2025, a Virginia federal court denied motions to dismiss a proposed class action alleging a decades-long no-poach conspiracy among shipbuilders and naval engineering consultants, finding the plaintiffs' claims plausible.
• In February 2026, the FTC ordered a building services contractor to abandon its no-hire agreements entirely and inform all affected workers and customers.

The UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has been at the forefront in addressing labour market misconduct:

• In February 2023, the CMA published guidance for employers.
• In March 2025, it issued its first labour market fine, penalising five major sports broadcast and production companies a total of £4.24 million (see our June 2025 update). The CMA's investigation concluded that the companies had shared confidential compensation data and aligned their approaches to freelancer remuneration, distorting competition in the market for freelance services.
• In September 2025, the CMA followed up with its "Competing for talent" guidance to help businesses understand their competition law obligations (see our September 2025 update).

In Turkey, the competition authority (Rekabet Kurumu) imposed fines totalling approximately EUR 5.83 million on 17 pharmaceutical companies in October 2025. The investigation found that several companies had engaged in no-poach agreements and concerted practices, while others had exchanged competitively sensitive information concerning future employee wages and benefits.

In Australia, the Treasury is consulting on proposed amendments to the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 that would explicitly prohibit no-poach and wage-fixing agreements. If enacted, the ban would apply from 2027, with civil penalties of up to AUD 50 million and potential criminal sanctions (see our May 2025 update).

Looking ahead

The developments in 2025 and 2026 mark a paradigm shift. Competition authorities across the EU, UK and the United States are actively enforcing restrictions on labour market conduct and imposing significant fines. Enforcement efforts are also accelerating across EU Member States as demonstrated by: (i) Romania's first labour market cartel decision, (ii) Poland's charges in the retail logistics sector and (iii) ongoing investigations in Portugal, Italy and the Netherlands.

A pending preliminary reference before the Court of Justice of the European Union, arising from a dispute involving Portuguese football clubs and hiring restrictions implemented during the pandemic, may provide further clarity on the legal boundaries in this area. The judgment is expected later this year and one of the key questions for the court's consideration is whether no-poach agreements are object restrictions. This judgment could therefore prove influential in shaping enforcement priorities.

Companies should be vigilant as no-poach agreements can emerge in multiple contexts and non-compliance can lead to severe penalties and reputational damage. Informal gentleman's agreements and unwritten understandings carry the same legal risk as formal contracts as demonstrated by recent enforcement actions in France, Romania and Poland. No-poach provisions can also be embedded in share purchase agreements, joint venture arrangements and other transactional documents that may escape routine antitrust review. Private enforcement adds further risk exposure: following the Delivery Hero / Glovo decision, affected employees may bring damages claims before national courts, with the European Commission's decision serving as binding proof of infringement under Article 16 of Regulation 1/2003.

In light of this enforcement climate, businesses should take proactive measures to mitigate their exposure:

• HR teams and senior management should receive targeted training to understand that any discussions with competitors concerning recruitment practices, salary levels or employee benefits are prohibited, and that informal or unwritten understandings not to recruit staff are unlawful and an enforcement priority for regulators.
• In parallel, companies should review their existing commercial arrangements, including partnership agreements, outsourcing contracts and supplier terms, to identify any provisions that restrict the hiring or solicitation of another party's employees.
• The sharing of compensation data with competitors must be avoided; where benchmarking is required, companies should rely only on anonymised, aggregated and historical data obtained through independent intermediaries.
• During M&A processes or other negotiations with competitors, companies should implement safeguards to prevent the disclosure of labour-related information such as individual salaries, pay structures or talent acquisition strategies.
• Finally, where a non-solicitation clause is genuinely required, it must meet a strict necessity threshold: it should be narrowly tailored to specific roles, limited in duration and clearly ancillary to a legitimate business objective.

Other author: Aamir Hajjout, Research Assistant

Want to know more?

• Competing for talent: CMA guidance for HR teams on compliance with competition law, 10 September 2025.
• First EU and UK fines for labour markets antitrust infringements, 11 June 2025.
• Wage fixing and no-poach agreements: restrictions by object?, 23 May 2024.
• CMA's growing interest in labour markets, 12 March 2024.