FTC Doubles Down on Noncompete Rule Power After Texas Setback

The Federal Trade Commission argued that its noncompete ban stems from a power to take “forward-looking action” on top of its role as an enforcer of competitive harms.

An agency lacking such substantive power would be “inconsistent with the purpose of the FTC Act, which is to prevent unfair methods of competition,” FTC counsel Rachael Westmoreland said during a Wednesday hearing in front of Judge Kelley Brisbon Hodge of the US District Court for Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

The hearing represented the first time for the FTC to make its case since a judge in Texas partially blocked the noncompete ...