The Department of Justice last week announced it had reached an agreement with a health care staffing company that conspired with a competitor to keep wages low for nurses working with medically fragile students.

Legal experts say it is the first criminal case win of its kind and could potentially be a landmark antitrust case.

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Katherine Van Dyck, senior legal counsel at the American Economic Liberties Project, which advocates for stronger antitrust laws, says historically enforcement of the Sherman Act has focused on violations involving consumer welfare, but that is slowly changing with cases like the one against VDA or a separate case regarding book publisher Penguin Random House’s proposed acquisition of Simon & Schuster.

“People are recognizing that these companies with huge market power — whether it be market power of nurses in Nevada, or authors across the U.S. — are not just taking advantage of consumers,” she said. “They are taking advantage of their workers, suppressing wages. People know that. People are not willing to accept it anymore.”

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An attorney in a National Law Review piece characterized the DOJ as taking an “aggressive posture” and wrote that employers need to make sure that everyone — from recruiters up to the c-suite — is aware of possible violations.

Van Dyck says Sherman Act violations are likely “more commonplace than people probably realize.”

“People, A, think they can get away with it, or, B, forget it exists. When you have these types of cases, which are criminal cases, that’s a serious threat… This is a crime that is punishable with imprisonment.”

Sherman Act violations come with the possibility of up to 10 years in prison, a $1 million fine for individuals, or a $100 million fine for corporations. Penalties are dependent on how big the company is.

The criminal fine and restitution agreed upon in the VDA settlement were “significant” for the company’s size, say legal experts.