Wabtec, Knorr Settle Railway No-Poach Suit for $49 Million

Wabtec Corp., Knorr-Bremse AG, and their affiliates will pay a combined $49 million to settle claims in Pittsburgh federal court that they agreed with other top railroad equipment makers not to poach one another’s workers.

The antitrust lawsuit accuses more than a dozen rail equipment makers of reducing employee mobility and suppressing wages by refraining from soliciting or hiring one another’s workers since 2009, the year Wabtec and Knorr reached a no-poach deal.

Similar agreements allegedly followed between Knorr and Faively Transport North America Inc. in 2011, and in 2014 between Wabtec and Faively. The proposed class action was ...