On August 20, 2024, the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas, in the Ryan lawsuit, struck down a final Federal Trade Commission (FTC) rule―which was set to go into effect on September 4, 2024, and ban noncompetition agreements for virtually all U.S. workers―holding that the rule shall not be enforced by the FTC or take effect as to any workers or employers.
Read the full Alert on the Duane Morris LLP website.
As reported in prior Alerts (on January 6, 2023; April 19 and 23, 2024; and July 3 and 24, 2024), after initially proposing the rule in January 2023, in April 2024 the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) voted 3-2 to approve a final rule:
Legal challenges to the noncompete ban have, thus far, been unsuccessful in securing an order enjoining, staying and/or invalidating the noncompete ban for all employers.
Read the full Alert on the Duane Morris LLP website.
As reported in our prior Alert, on April 23, 2024, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) voted 3-2 to approve a final rule:
At least three challenges to the noncompete ban have been filed in federal courts since that time, but none have yet succeeded in halting the ban nationwide. As reported in our recent Alert, on July 3, 2024, in the Ryan lawsuit, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas enjoined the FTC from enforcing its noncompete ban and stayed the ban as to the parties to that lawsuit, but refused to issue a nationwide injunction or stay that would apply to other employers. On the heels of the decision in Ryan, on July 23, 2024, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, in ATS Tree Services, LLC v. Federal Trade Commission, et al., denied the plaintiff’s motion seeking a nationwide injunction and stay, dealing a further blow to efforts to halt the noncompete ban.
Read the full Alert on the Duane Morris LLP website.
As reported in our prior Alert, on April 23, 2024, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) voted 3-2 to approve a final rule banning noncompete agreements with all workers 120 days after publication in the Federal Register (i.e., on September 4, 2024), and invalidating existing noncompetes with all workers except senior executives. Ryan LLC, a national tax preparation service, filed suit challenging the FTC’s noncompete ban shortly after it was issued. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other business associations later joined the lawsuit. The parties challenging the noncompete ban filed motions to stay/enjoin the ban. Following briefing, the court indicated that it would decide the motions to stay/enjoin the noncompete ban without requiring a hearing. On July 3, 2024, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas enjoined the FTC from enforcing its noncompete ban against the plaintiff and plaintiff-intervenors in the Ryan lawsuit and stayed the noncompete ban as to those parties, but refused to issue a nationwide injunction or stay that would apply to other employers, see the court opinion. The court also refused to extend the scope of the injunction and stay of the noncompete ban to members of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
Read the full Alert on the Duane Morris LLP website.
On April 23, 2024, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) voted 3-2 to approve a final rule banning non-competes with all workers 120 days after publication in the Federal Register, and invalidating existing non-competes with all workers except senior executives. Although the final rule abandons many aspects of the rule proposed in January 2023 (see our prior Alert), the final rule represents a sea change in the law relating to non-compete clauses in the United States.
Read the full Alert on the Duane Morris LLP website.
The Federal Trade Commission will vote at an open commission meeting to be held virtually on Tuesday, April 23, 2024, at 2:00 p.m. Eastern on its proposed rule banning employers from entering into noncompete agreements with workers. As reported in our prior Alert, the proposed rule would prohibit employers from entering into, maintaining, enforcing or threatening enforcement of a noncompete clause with virtually any worker and invalidate existing noncompete clauses with both current and former workers.
Read the full Alert on the Duane Morris LLP website.
In the wake of the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) proposed regulation banning noncompete agreements except in limited circumstances, a bipartisan Senate group led by Democrat Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut and Republican Senator Todd Young of Indiana introduced the Workforce Mobility Act of 2023 on February 1, 2023. If enacted, the legislation would effectively eliminate noncompete agreements entered into after the bill becomes law.
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Just one day after entering into consent agreements invalidating non-competes with three companies, on January 5, 2023, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) proposed a new non-compete rule that would prohibit employers from entering into, maintaining, enforcing or threatening enforcement of a non-compete clause with virtually any worker and invalidate existing non-compete clauses with both current and former workers. If the non-compete rule is finalized by the FTC in the same or substantially same form as proposed, and if it survives the legal challenges that are sure to follow, the non-compete rule would make non-compete clauses an unfair method of competition under Section 5 of the FTC Act, regardless of inconsistent state statutes, regulations, orders or interpretations, and would represent a sea change in the law relating to non-compete clauses in the United States.
Rea the full Alert on the Duane Morris LLP website.
On January 4, 2023, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) took legal action for the first time to prohibit the use of noncompete restrictions by three companies and their executives. In doing so, the FTC flexed its newly reestablished standalone authority under Section 5 of the FTC Act. In a partisan 3-to-1 vote, the FTC commissioners voted to issue administrative complaints and accept consent agreements that prohibit the firms and their executives from imposing, attempting to impose, enforcing or threatening to enforce noncompete agreements on a broad swath of covered workers. The orders also require the firms to provide written notice to the thousands of impacted workers that the noncompete agreements are null and void.
Read the full Alert on the Duane Morris LLP website.
On November 10, 2022, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) issued a policy statement that significantly expands the scope of what the FTC considers “unfair methods of competition” under Section 5 of the FTC Act (the “Policy Statement”). The announcement comes more than a year after the FTC rescinded its previous policy against pursuing “standalone” Section 5 Unfair Methods of Competition claims and interpreting Section 5 as coextensive with the Clayton and Sherman Acts. The Policy Statement appears to align with FTC Chair Lina Khan’s goal of increasing enforcement of conduct the FTC deems to be unfair regardless of whether it violates the Sherman and Clayton Acts.
Read the full Alert on the Duane Morris LLP website.
