The US District Court for the District of Connecticut acquits the defendants in a no-poach trial on the grounds that no reasonable jury could convict on the case presented by the government (Mahesh Patel / Robert Harvey / Harpreet Wasan / Steven Houghtaling / Tom Edwards / Gary Prus)

On April 28, 2023, U.S. District Court Judge Victor A. Bolden entered an Order under Criminal Procedure Rule 29 acquitting the defendants in United States v. Patel, a federal criminal prosecution claiming that individuals employed by an aerospace company and its suppliers of outsourced labor entered into a per se illegal conspiracy under Section 1 of the Sherman Act to restrict hiring. The Court’s Order came at the close of the Antitrust Division’s case-in-chief – before the defense put on any evidence – and held that no reasonable jury could convict on the case presented by the government. The Antitrust Division had prosecuted the case on the theory that the hiring restrictions allegedly agreed among the defendants (a so-called “no-poach agreement”) were a per se illegal labor market