No-Poach Agreements: Purchasing Power Type, Explicit v. Tacit Collusion, and Lessons From Sellers’ Cartels

From near obscurity just over a decade ago, no-poach agreements are now in the crosshairs of several competition authorities worldwide, including the U.S. and EU.  No-poach agreements are a type of buyers’ cartel where employers explicitly collude to increase their purchasing power over their employees. They are the mirror image of market allocation of customers by sellers. This short article makes three observations in relation to no-poach agreements. First, depending on market structure