In recent years, the Department of Justice (DOJ) has embarked upon an aggressive series of criminal investigations and prosecutions in the labor market space, involving alleged agreements to restrain certain job opportunities for workers.

These criminal labor market cases—a strong focus and top priority within the DOJ for several years—continue to face strong headwinds at trial, with judges and juries rejecting the DOJ's approach across four trials.  However, this unbroken string of trial defeats does not seem to have slowed the DOJ's ongoing pursuit of alleged anticompetitive conduct within the labor markets.