What do you do when you hire someone and their former company sends you a threatening letter?

Here is a principle every TA and HR leader needs to internalize: employees can freely leave, and competitors can freely hire them. This isn’t just an HR philosophy; it’s a foundational principle of U.S. labor law rooted in the right to earn a livelihood and the necessity of free-market competition. Unless an employee has signed a valid, narrowly tailored contract—like a reasonable Non-Compete or a Non-Solicitation Agreement—or is actively stealing trade secrets, your organization has the full legal right to recruit talent from a competitor, and that competitor has the right to recruit from you.

The threat of a lawsuit is often just a scare tactic, designed to illegally restrain competition for labor. While we must respect valid contracts, we must also recognize that competition for talent is legal and healthy. In fact, attempts by companies to secretly agree not to poach each other’s employees (known as No-Poach Agreements) are likely felony violations of antitrust law—the very agreements designed to protect fair competition.

As TA professionals, our job is to navigate the market ethically and legally, knowing that absent a specific legal restraint, the employee’s right to mobility and the employer’s right to compete remain supreme.

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Bibliography

Mobley v. Workday, Inc., Case No. 3:23-cv-00770-RFL (N.D. Cal. filed Feb. 21, 2023).
Court Order Denying Motion to Dismiss and Allowing “Agent” Theory of Liability (July 12, 2024), Mobley v. Workday, Inc.
Court Order Granting Preliminary Collective Action Certification for ADEA claims (May 16, 2025), Mobley v. Workday, Inc.
Harper v. Sirius XM Radio, LLC, Case No. 2:25-cv-12403 (E.D. Mich. filed Aug. 4, 2025).
Equal Employment Opportunity Comm’n v. iTutorGroup, Inc., Case No. 1:22-cv-02565-PKC-PK (E.D.N.Y. filed May 25, 2022).
The Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890, 15 U.S.C. 1-7.
U.S. Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission, Antitrust Guidance for Human Resources Professionals (Oct. 2016).

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Yuri Kostun

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