The US District Court for the District of Connecticut upholds a joint motion of acquittal to hand DoJ another loss in its campaign to criminally prosecute labour market hiring restraints (Mahesh Patel / Robert Harvey / Harpreet Wasan / Steven Houghtaling / Tom Edwards / Gary Prus)

On April 28, 2023, Judge Victor A. Bolden of the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut granted defendants’ Rule 29 Motion for Judgment of Acquittal in United States v. Patel, stymieing the Justice Department’s latest effort to prosecute agreements among competitors to refrain from hiring or soliciting each other’s employees as potential criminal violations of the antitrust law. When the DOJ Antitrust Division initially issued the indictment, Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Kanter highlighted this case as exemplifying the Division's