No-poach practices: the Autorité de la concurrence fines four companies in the engineering, technology consulting and IT services sectors

The Autorité de la concurrence has fined two separate anticompetitive agreements between Ausy (now Randstad Digital) and Alten, on the one hand, and Expleo and Bertrandt, on the other, for introducing general no-poach agreements. These practices took the form of gentlemen’s agreements aimed at prohibiting the companies in question from soliciting and hiring each other’s employees, an essential competitive parameter in the labour markets in which the companies are active.

The Autorité learned of the practices through a leniency application submitted by Ausy in April 2018 and through dawn raids in November 2018.

In respect of the two objections upheld, the Autorité has imposed a total fine of €29.5 million on Alten, Expleo and Bertrandt. Ausy has received full immunity from fines due to its status as a leniency applicant.

In addition, the Autorité has ordered the parties to publish a summary of this decision on the social network LinkedIn, as well as in electronic and paper editions of the newspaper Le Monde Informatique.