Acqui-hiring—a fusion of the words acquisition and hiring—refers to the practice of larger companies acquiring start-ups with the primary goal of integrating the employees of the startup to their own workforce. While this phenomenon is becoming increasingly common in the tech sector, it is not limited to it. From a merger control perspective, a particularly…

In this briefing, we describe how certain employment practices, such as no-poach or wage-fixing agreements, may infringe competition law, a topic that has recently taken centre stage in the US and is also firmly, although more discretely, on the radar of antitrust authorities in Europe, but perhaps not yet on that of companies. Here is…