Two Pinterest directors have resigned from Nextdoor's board of directors in response to U.S. Justice Department efforts to stop directors from holding similar board positions at rival companies, the department said on Wednesday.

"Two directors who served on the boards of both Nextdoor and Pinterest resigned from the board of Nextdoor effective Aug. 1, without the directors or either company admitting liability," the department said in a statement.

The push to enforce rules about interlocking directorates comes during a broader increase in antitrust enforcement. Antitrust law says that competing companies cannot have the same people on their boards of directors in most cases.

The Justice Department did not identify the board members. Nextdoor said in a filing to the government in late July that Leslie Kilgore and Andrea Wishom had decided to step down from Nextdoor's board. Both Kilgore and Wishom are on the Pinterest board of directors, according to that company's website.

Neither Pinterest nor Nextdoor immediately responded to a request for comment.

(Reporting by Diane Bartz, Susan Heavey and David Ljunggren; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)