A judge in Texas just blocked the FTC’s new noncompete rule, which was set to go into effect on September 4. U.S. District Judge Ada Brown in the Northern District of Texas ruled that the Federal Trade Commission’s ban “is arbitrary and capricious because it is unreasonably overbroad without a reasonable explanation.”
What does this mean for you? Do you need to do anything?
Noncompetes may still become illegal.
FTC spokesperson Victoria Graham has said the FTC will appeal the ruling, and obviously disagrees with Judge Brown’s decision. However, this ruling did not surprise legal experts, and shouldn’t have surprised the FTC. After all, it only passed by a 3 to 2 vote of the FTC Commission, and they acknowledged that it was overbroad in their documentation. (Specifically, they acknowledged that executives had access to legal counsel and thus were not victims of noncompetes as other, lower-paid people would be.)