FTC's Noncompete Ban Likely To Die On Appeal Under Trump

By declining to defend the rule, Trump’s Federal Trade Commission would ensure employers could continue locking workers in their jobs.

The Federal Trade Commission’s historic ban on noncompete agreements could die a quiet death next month if President Donald Trump’s new commission appointees choose not to defend it in court.

The ban ― which would bar most firms from requiring workers to sign noncompetes as a condition of employment ― was blocked by a Trump-appointed judge last year after business groups sued. The FTC’s new Republican chair, Andrew Ferguson, has until July 10 to tell the court whether the agency will fight for the rule’s survival.

The outlook isn’t great for the rule’s supporters.

When the then-Democratic-led FTC voted 3-2 to issue the regulation last April, Ferguson was one of the two Republican commissioners who opposed it. He later argued in his dissent that the rule was “unlawful,” calling it “the most extraordinary assertion of authority in the Commission’s history.”

Ferguson now heads a 3-member, all-Republican commission after Trump fired its two Democratic members, in what the latter have argued in court was an illegal purge.