Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, AGENCY NEWS—FTC to hold October workshop on noncompetes, (Sep 23, 2025)

By WK Editorial Staff

The workshop will follow a September 2025 that has been chock-full of activity regarding noncompete agreements by the agency.

The FTC announced it will host a workshop, titled “Moving Forward: Protecting Workers from Anticompetitive Noncompete Agreements.” The event will be held on October 8, 2025 from 2:00pm to 6:00pm, at the FTC’s Constitution Center. The event is open to the public, in-person or via livestream.

A noncompete agreement is a contractual term between an employer and a worker that typically blocks the worker from taking a job with a competing employer or starting a competing business after the end of the worker’s employment. In practice, noncompete agreements are often subject to abuse. The workshop is part of the Trump-Vance FTC’s efforts to highlight the negative impact of noncompete agreements on American workers and put business on notice of its enforcement priorities.

The FTC’s proposed noncompete rule and its invalidation. In January 2023, the FTC proposed a rule that sweepingly banned non-compete clauses in employment contracts and retroactively invalidated such provisions in existing employment agreements. Following receipt and consideration of public comment, the rule was finalized on April 23, 2024, and subsequently appeared in the Federal Register on May 7, 2024, with the stated effective date of September 4, 2024.

The very day the regulation was finalized, Ryan LLC, a tax consultancy business, filed a complaint seeking to have the court vacate and set aside the rule and various related declaratory judgments. The federal district court in Dallas invalidated the FTC's Non-Compete Clause Rule, holding that it shall not be enforced or otherwise take effect. The court found that in promulgating the rule, the FTC exceeded its statutory authority and acted arbitrarily and capriciously in making the rule overly broad without adequate explanation, and in disregarding evidence that supported less drastic alternatives. The FTC appealed.

Flurry of September noncompete activity. On September 5, 2025, the FTC took steps to accede to the vacatur of the non-compete clause rule and to withdraw its appeal in litigation that had opposed the rulemaking. Those actions were followed by even more September 2025 activity by the FTC: (1) an enforcement action eliminating restrictive and anticompetitive noncompete agreements; a series of letters sent to healthcare companies warning them to review and eliminate any anticompetitive noncompete agreements they may have; and a broad request for information seeking tips to lead to further enforcement actions.

Workshop details. The workshop will be hosted by the FTC’s Labor Task Force, which was created by Chairman Andrew N. Ferguson to prioritize rooting out and prosecuting deceptive, unfair, and anticompetitive labor-market practices that harm American workers. The workshop will include public statements from FTC Commissioners, victims of unfair and anticompetitive noncompete agreements, and leading experts in the field. A full agenda and list of speakers will be available prior to the event. A livestream link will be posted to FTC.gov on the morning of the event.

News: AgencyNews Conferences