ADVOCATUS RESEARCH

Navigating the CMA’s Recent Antitrust Guidance to Employers

With the issuance of its latest guidance document, Employers advice on how to avoid anti-competitive behaviour, the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has signalled its intention to ratchet up antitrust scrutiny of labour markets, reflecting a trend which continues to gather momentum amongst competition regulators across the globe. Traditionally, such regulators have focused on eliminating anti-competitive practices relating to the price, quality and availability of products and services. However, in recent years, anti-competitive practices concerning the supply of labour have increasingly come under the microscope, with regulators in North America leading the charge in scrutinising employers’ practices in this area. Echoing this trend, the CMA’s guidance acts as a warning to employers that it intends to crack down on three key anti-competitive employer practices, which include so-called ‘no-poaching’ agreements, wage-fixing agreements and information sharing. After exploring the exact guidance in more detail as well as its underlying rationale, this note examines the broader global context which surrounds the CMA’s new paper. Finally, in the face of this increased scrutiny of labour markets, this note provides several practical steps that employers can take in order to minimise their antitrust risk going forward.

Read the full report here.