A federal court in Texas has thrown out the government’s ban on noncompete agreements that was set to take effect September 4.
In her ruling, Judge Ada Brown of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas wrote that the federal agency had overstepped its power when it approved the ban.
“The FTC lacks substantive rulemaking authority with respect to unfair methods of competition,” she wrote. "The role of an administrative agency is to do as told by Congress, not to do what the agency think[s] it should do.”
Yeah, that was my take too. The language in the Act seems pretty straightforward to me, and the judge’s statement seems to directly contradict it (but IANAL).
Maybe he’s trying to split hairs over the FTC not having direction to regulate how employers deal with employees, and saying that doesn’t fall under “commerce”?
Probably, but that’s still absolute lunacy from the standard of objective reality and probably shaky as hell from a purely legal one too.
Might as well have ruled that the IOC aren’t allowed to make decisions regarding the Olympics for all the sense this makes 🤦