The Department of Justice (DOJ) continues to pursue no-poach agreements as criminal conduct despite yet another recent defeat, this time in United States v. Patel. In Patel, the DOJ alleged that employees of an aerospace company and outsourcing competitors conspired to restrict the hiring and recruiting of aerospace engineers and other employees in violation of the Sherman Act’s criminal provisions. On April 28, the U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut granted the defendants’ motion for judgment of acquittal, finding insufficient evidence of market allocation for a reasonable jury to find beyond a reasonable doubt a per se violation of Section 1 of the Sherman Act. In particular, the court explained, the government failed to prove in its case in chief that there was a labor market allocation “to any meaningful extent” because the alleged agreement allowed frequent hiring, even calling it “commonplace.”