Barely ten days after Competition Today’s report on Europe’s widening no-poach enforcement, authorities in Turkey, Poland, and Lithuania have each taken fresh steps to address anticompetitive labour market practices. The pattern is unmistakable: competition law is no longer confined to product markets. It is now firmly at work in protecting the mobility — and bargaining power — of workers.
On 17 October, the Turkish authority fined several global pharmaceutical companies a combined $5.8 million for no-poach and wage-fixing practices, as reported. Days earlier, on 9 October, Poland’s UOKiK announced a probe into suspected no-poach coordination in the transport sector, while Lithuania’s authority warned businesses against online coordination and employee-related restrictions. Together, these moves confirm what has been evident since mid-2023: no-poach enforcement has spread well beyond the early jurisdictions of Hungary, Spain and Portugal, and into the mainstream of European competition policy.
“A complete non-issue, now a priority”
“The shift has been dramatic,” says Sam MacMahon Baldwin, partner at Szecskay Attorneys at Law in Budapest. “When I started practising competition law fifteen years ago, non-poaching was a complete non-issue. You wouldn’t even mention it in a contract review. Now it’s one of the first things we flag to clients.”
Baldwin traces the change to a broader policy reorientation: “Competition law is moving away from the narrow consumer-welfare view and toward a ‘markets that work for people’ approach. It fits perfectly — you want companies to compete for workers, offering better pay and conditions.”
Still, he notes that most corporate executives are only beginning to internalize this change. “Everyone knows you can’t agree on prices,” he says, “but they don’t instinctively see that agreeing not to hire each other’s staff can amount to the same thing.”
“Not a deep-rooted cultural issue everywhere”
But the picture is not uniform across Europe. Hana Nevřalová, partner at JŠK in Prague, argues that in some countries the cultural shift may already be more advanced than commentators assume. “I don’t actually think these practices are deeply embedded here,” she says. “There might be isolated situations — for instance, in smaller towns where there are few employers and everyone knows each other — but generally people are aware of their rights, and labour protections are quite strong.”
Nevřalová credits the Czech authority with taking a constructive approach. “The authority didn’t just want to frighten businesses,” she explains. “They published information materials, organised conferences, and even ran a project for HR professionals to explain what types of conduct are risky.”
That effort, she says, “made 2023 the year when everyone in Czechia was reminded that this is a real competition-law issue.”
While large companies are increasingly compliant, Nevřalová acknowledges that awareness remains uneven: “Big businesses know about it — they have lawyers and attend seminars. But smaller firms may not have the same access to information.”
From naked restraints to “grey zones”
Much of the current enforcement, Baldwin adds, focuses on “naked” no-poach agreements — simple pledges between firms not to hire from one another. But the more difficult cases lie in the “grey areas” of legitimate cooperation: “Think of an IT contractor embedding its staff at a client company — the client may sign a non-solicitation clause to prevent poaching. Those contextual clauses are trickier, and the law isn’t yet clear on how far they can go.”
This uncertainty makes advocacy crucial. Many businesses still treat employee-hiring restrictions as ordinary commercial safeguards rather than potential competition infringements. “We lawyers have to be the ones flagging it,” he says. “Otherwise they just don’t realize the risk.”
Advocacy lagging behind enforcement
That same message resonates in Lisbon. Rita Aleixo Gregório, partner at PLMJ, says Portugal’s competition authority (AdC) has been investigating no-poach practices since 2020, long before its infringement decisions became public. “The authority has been consistent in listing labour-market restrictions among its enforcement priorities,” she notes. “What you’re seeing now is the outcome of investigations that started several years ago.”
Yet enforcement alone, she cautions, is not enough to change corporate culture. “There is still a lot of advocacy to be made,” she says, adding: “‘How can this be a problem? This has been tolerated for years.’ It takes time to explain that what was acceptable before can now be seen as a possible cartel.” The AdC has issued guidance and best-practice materials, but awareness remains uneven, particularly among firms without dedicated competition counsel. Gregório stresses that training and outreach are essential if the cultural shift is to take root: “It’s still confusing for many businesses. The idea that you cannot discuss and adjust hiring decisions with companies that hire the same employee profile is very new.”
A growing litigation frontier
If public enforcement is the first wave, private damages claims may soon become the second. Baldwin expects follow-on litigation to emerge once enough infringement decisions establish liability: “We’ve had a surge of cartel damages claims since the EU Damages Directive. The same logic will apply to labour-market cartels,” he says.
Such claims could be significant. “You don’t have the pass-on defence that defendants use in ordinary cases,” he explains. “In wage-fixing or no-poach situations, the employees are the final victims. The harm isn’t diluted down the chain.”
In Hungary, he notes, the law goes even further: “There’s a statutory presumption of a 10% overcharge in cartel cases. That could easily apply in follow-on labour cases.”
Nevřalová, however, strikes a more cautious tone. “Czech society is not very litigious,” she says. “Courts take a long time, and proceedings can be unpredictable, so businesses often prefer to settle rather than sue.”
Still, she believes that may be changing: “We see more commercial litigation now, and if there are clear findings from the competition authority, that could open the door to damages claims — including by employees. It will be very interesting to see if that happens.”
Trade unions, Baldwin suggests, could also play a decisive role. “They are the natural custodians of workers’ welfare and might be the ones to bring claims on behalf of employees. Especially in countries with a strong collective-bargaining culture, this could be the next big development.”
Lessons from the early movers
Both Gregorio and Baldwin agree that the “hip new” focus on labour markets is here to stay. Enforcement patterns have already evolved from high-profile cases in sports and tech — such as Portugal’s football-league investigation — to more traditional sectors like transport, manufacturing, and healthcare. The Turkish pharmaceutical fines underline that even multinational companies with sophisticated compliance systems remain exposed.
Gregório observes that some of these cases reach far back in time: “The AdC issued a Statement of Objections against an association for practices dating back to 1987”. That shows how long-standing and normalized some of these arrangements were.”
Such retroactive scrutiny, she adds, raises fairness concerns but also demonstrates how profoundly norms are shifting. “For decades, this was not even seen as a competition issue. Now it is treated as a serious infringement.”
Nevřalová agrees that awareness has grown but emphasises that, at least in Central Europe, “the message has landed.” Still, she expects further guidance to come: “The Czech authority already has one investigation under way, and when the first decision comes, it will make the issue even more public.”
Making markets work — for workers
As European enforcers coordinate more closely and exchange information through the ECN, the direction of travel is unmistakable. The challenge now is not detection but persuasion — ensuring that employers internalize the idea that labour competition is as fundamental as price competition.
“There’s a policy realignment happening,” says Baldwin. “Competition law isn’t just about products anymore. It’s about fair opportunities — including for workers.”
Whether through national advocacy campaigns, investigaitons, or eventual follow-on damages claims, Europe’s no-poach story is entering its next act.
