Were a competition lawyer to hear the lyrics of the old song “How d’ya like your eggs in the morning?”, the answer these days would almost certainly be: “Definitely not poached.”

This rather weak joke is possible, thanks to a growing trend across Europe, namely ‘no-poach agreements’.  Referred to by one lawyer as being an increasingly “sexy topic” for competition law specialists, this is an area of work previously regarded as the sole domain of employment lawyers.  However, beginning in the US in 2016 with its Antitrust Guidance for Human Resource Professionals, antitrust authorities have started taking a much closer look at employment agreements in recent years and this is now becoming an area of interest in countries as far apart as Portugal and Romania, or Poland and Turkey.

Lawyers we spoke to felt that this was part of a trend of antitrust authorities looking into evolving theories of harm and broadening their scope of investigation from more traditional areas.  But what are ‘no-poach agreements’ and why are competition lawyers becoming interested in an area that has previously been the domain of their employment colleagues?

Turkey became one of the most recent jurisdictions to introduce guidelines concerning no-poach agreements, bringing them in in December 2024.  Their guidelines target companies which agree not to recruit employees (or former employees) of rival companies.  Now, clearly for reasons of proprietary information, companies will be keen not to lose employees to their rivals, but that raises questions for intellectual property lawyers.  So, why do employment agreements concern competition specialists?

An answer to this question can be found in a recent Polish investigation into no-poach agreements in the retail sector.  This investigation is specifically targeting the transport companies used by retailers to see if they are using no-poach agreements as a way to lower wages or reduce the frequency of pay increases for their drivers.  The argument being that if the other companies will not hire a driver from their rivals, then it is impossible for the drivers to leave and find similar work for better wages elsewhere, thus forcing them to choose between accepting lower wages or changing their career.  This would certainly raise competition law questions.

As has already been mentioned, this has been an issue in the US for a few years now, but how prevalent is it in Europe?  The European Commission published a policy brief on the topic in May 2024 and a couple of months later opened an investigation into Delivery Hero and Glovo that included investigating possible no-poach agreements.  While the no-poach agreements were not the sole focus of the investigation, this does represent the Commission’s first investigation into the subject.

At a more national level, lawyers we spoke with in Germany reported that it was a trend that their clients were keen to discuss.  However, while one said that the German authorities were moving “slowly” towards investigating no-poach agreements, across the border in France the feeling is that the authority is more bullish.  One lawyer commented: “The French Competition Authority wants to be the first authority in the EU to impose fines on companies for no-poach agreements.”

However, it appears that the French Authority may have been beaten to that crown – the Turkish competition authority has already fined eight companies from the IT sector, while the Lithuanian authority has fined several real estate agencies.  The sporting sector has been a key area for investigations into possible no-poach agreements, particularly concerning agreements made during the pandemic.  For example, the Polish authority has investigated its national basketball league and 16 basketball clubs, while the Portuguese authority has fined its football league and 31 football clubs for an agreement to not hire players who had terminated their contracts during the pandemic.

It appears that the title of most active authority on no-poach agreements should currently go to the Portuguese authority, which began investigating this area in 2020, and issued its second fine for restrictive labour-market practices in February 2025 when it sanctioned Inetum.

It will be interesting to watch developments over the rest of 2025 and see if any other authorities can match the activity in Portugal, and which lawyers or law firms will start to make this area a key focus for their competition law practice.