CMA issues new guidance setting out how competition law applies in labour markets

The Competition and Markets Authority (“CMA”) has published practical guidance for HR and recruitment teams that sets out how competition law applies in labour markets. This guidance makes clear that no-poach agreements, wage-fixing and exchanges of competitively sensitive information are prohibited under UK competition law. Businesses should review their employment practices to ensure compliance.

The CMA published its new guidance “Competing for Talent” on 9 September 2025. This guidance supplements a short guide published by the CMA in February 2023. Competing for Talent gives clear, example-based guidance for HR, talent acquisition and business leaders about what behaviour risks competition law scrutiny.

Labour markets and competition law

The enforcement of competition law within labour markets has come to the fore in particular over the last couple of years to become a global trend. Following the US, we have now seen a wave of enforcement across Europe. The European Commission recently issued its first fine in a labour market context to the tune of €329 million against Delivery Hero and Glovo in June 2025. The Commission concluded that the parties infringed competition law, including by the use of no-poach agreements. Enforcement is also taking place at national level, including for example the Autorité de la concurrence in France which concluded in June 2025 that several engineering/IT companies had infringed competition law through the use of no-poach agreements and issued fines totalling €29.5 million.

The CMA has investigated labour markets conduct in at least three cases (sports content production and broadcasting; non-sport television content production, creation and broadcasting; and fragrances/fragrance ingredients). In March 2025, the CMA concluded that sports broadcasters had bilaterally shared competitively sensitive information in relation to their hiring practices and intentions on 15 separate occasions, and concluded that on 10 of these occasions, had the objective of coordinating pay. As a result, it issued total fines of £4.2 million. Of note in this case was that: 

• unlike the more typical trend we are seeing in the US and Europe of no-hire/poach enforcement, this case concerned sharing pay information and pay coordination;
• somewhat unusually, the CMA did not seek to demonstrate the existence of a ‘single continuous infringement’ but, instead, identified 15 separate instances where it concluded UK competition law was breached; the sparsity of these instances may go some way to explaining the low level of the fines; and
• the CMA appears in any event to have been mindful of the fact that this was the first time it was imposing fines for this type of behaviour. When calculating fines, no deterrence multiplier was utilised and substantial fine reductions were granted under the leniency regime, combined with a 20% settlement discount. This is further evidence that proactively disclosing behaviour to the CMA may be an attractive option, and needs to be carefully considered.

Competing for Talent

The CMA guidance aims to help “anyone involved in recruiting and retaining workers understand how competition law applies to their work”. It highlights three main types of anti-competitive behaviour in labour markets (no-poaching, wage-fixing, and information exchange) and discusses how and when these could arise. It also provides guidance on how collective bargaining can be carried out in a competition law compliant way.

No-poach

This is when a business agrees not to hire or poach another business’ employees. It could be implemented through a no-hire agreement, ‘no-cold calling’ agreements (where they agree not to solicit another business employees), or an agreement not to approach or hire another business’ employees without the other business’ consent. These arrangements do not need to be mutual in order to be prohibited.

The CMA does note that these arrangements differ from no-solicitation clauses which may be included in commercial agreements (such as secondment or consultancy agreements) and may not breach competition law if they are necessary to enable the arrangement to be carried out, are proportionate to the overall objectives of the agreement, and their duration, subject matter and geographic scope are limited to what is reasonably required.

Wage-fixing

This is when businesses that compete for the same type of employees agree to fix pay, benefits or other terms and conditions of employment. The CMA makes clear that this can include agreeing the same wage increase rates or setting caps on pay. The CMA gives examples of what would be prohibited, including the use of recommended pay rates circulated by a trade association.

Information exchange

Competition law prohibits exchanging information which is ‘competitively sensitive’. This means information that reduces uncertainty as to the operation of the market in question, and/or could influence the competitive strategy of other businesses (which in this context would include hiring decisions or pay/benefit setting). Information is more likely to be competitively sensitive where it is confidential, individualised to a particular business, and/or future-facing.

The new guidance provides helpful examples of what types of information exchange between competitors in the purchase of labour are more or less likely to be problematic. For example, the CMA notes that benchmarking can be a helpful tool for those involved in HR management to make informed decisions, and examples include how benchmarking can be carried out in a competition law compliant way (such as through the use of an independent third party that ensures information is anonymised and sufficiently aggregated).

Collective bargaining

The CMA will not seek to enforce competition law when workers (or self-employed individuals) and companies come together to reach a ‘genuine collective bargain’. The involves negotiation taking place between an employer, group of employers or employers’ organisations (such as a trade association or industry body), and one or more works’ organisations (such as a trade union), for the purpose of determining working conditions or regulating relations between employers and workers.

In preparing for collective bargaining, it may be necessary to coordinate negotiating strategy (such as common goals for better pay or conditions) and the CMA will not enforce competition law against this coordination. However, both employers and self-employed worker organisations should not exchange competitively sensitive information unless it is absolutely necessary and cannot be achieved by other means. Furthermore, the coordination of behaviour on the market outside of collective bargaining can be an illegal cartel.

What do businesses need to know?

Labour markets remain high on the CMA and other competition authorities’ agendas. It is clear that HR departments, individuals making hiring decisions, and employees procuring services from self-employed service providers need to receive appropriate antitrust training. Reviewing template employment and supplier contracts to ensure antitrust compliance is equally important. As always, the potential for a leniency application should be on the radar of the legal team where potential misconduct is identified.  

For more information, please reach out to the authors of this article or your usual contact at CMS.