Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, FTC NEWS—Commission head sends letters to large healthcare employers and staffing firms regarding noncompetes, (Sep 11, 2025)

By Brandi O. Brown, J.D.

“Many healthcare employers and staffing companies may include unreasonable noncompete agreements in employment contracts for vital roles like nurses, physicians, and other medical professionals.”

Yesterday, the Federal Trade Commission announced that Chairman Andrew N. Ferguson has sent letters, based on a template, to multiple large healthcare employers and staffing firms urging them to conduct a comprehensive review of their employment agreements—including any noncompetes or other restrictive agreements—to ensure they are appropriately tailored and comply with the law.

Anticompetitive conduct. Among other things, the letter states the following:

The FTC is committed to rooting out unfair and anticompetitive conduct in labor markets and the healthcare sector. Available information suggests that many healthcare employers and staffing companies include noncompete agreements (“noncompetes”) in employment contracts that may unreasonably limit employment options for vital roles like nurses, physicians, and other medical professionals. Noncompetes may have particularly harmful effects in healthcare markets where they can restrict patients’ choices of who provides their medical care—including, critically, in rural areas where medical services are already stretched thin. [footnotes omitted] It reminds the recipients that the FTC has authority under Section 5 the FTC Act “to investigate unfair methods of competition, including noncompete agreements that are unjustified, overbroad, or otherwise unfair or anticompetitive.”

“Enforcement against unreasonable noncompete agreements remains a top priority for the Federal Trade Commission,” said Kelse Moen, Deputy Director of the Bureau of Competition and co-chair of the agency’s Joint Labor Task Force. “We strongly encourage all employers—not just those receiving letters today—to review their contracts closely, to ensure that any restrictions on employee mobility are in full compliance with the law.”

Ban off the table, but still aggressive enforcement. While the announcement notes that these letters follow a Commission vote last week to withdraw from its legal defense of the nationwide noncompete ban, it points to the Chairman’s statement making clear that the FTC would stay vigilant “enforcing the antitrust laws aggressively against noncompete agreements” including by “patrolling our markets for specific anticompetitive conduct that hurts American consumers and workers, and taking bad actors to court.”

Other actions. The FTC had recently taken several actions to protect workers from noncompete agreements, it notes, including the launch of a public inquiry to gather input to inform possible future enforcement actions and its recently action ordering the nation’s largest pet cremation business to stop enforcing noncompete agreements, freeing nearly 1,800 workers from restrictive agreements.

News: AgencyNews ContractClaims LitigationNewsTrends