"Key Employer Takeaways From DOJ's Poultry Antitrust Case," an article by Akin Gump antitrust/competition partner Gorav Jindal; cybersecurity, privacy and data protection practice co-head Natasha Kohne; and antitrust/competition counsel Brian Rafkin has been published by Law360.
The authors write that the Department of Justice (DOJ) Antitrust Division "recently fined three major U.S. poultry processors and a data consulting company a total of $84.8 million for violating federal antitrust laws by allegedly conspiring to fix employee wages and benefits."
They note that, according to the DOJ's civil complaint, the poultry processors had, for more than two decades, secretly collaborated to determine compensation and other benefits and exchanged detailed and identifiable information about employee wages and benefits.
The authors write that, while this was an antitrust case, the settlement also serves as a reminder to companies of the risks that they face when managing employee personal data, in particular that the sharing of disaggregated, unblinded information regarding company employees can open up a company to data privacy risks.
Law360 subscribers can read the full article here.
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