Federal Trade Commission Chairman Andrew N. Ferguson has sent letters to several large healthcare employers and staffing companies, urging them to review their employment agreements for compliance with the law. The focus is on noncompete clauses and other restrictive agreements that may affect nurses, physicians, and other medical professionals.
The FTC notes that such restrictions can limit healthcare professionals’ job options and reduce patients’ choices of care providers. This impact is particularly significant in rural areas where access to medical services is already limited.
Kelse Moen, Deputy Director of the Bureau of Competition and co-chair of the agency’s Joint Labor Task Force, stated: “Enforcement against unreasonable noncompete agreements remains a top priority for the Federal Trade Commission. 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.”
Under Section 5 of the FTC Act, the agency has authority to investigate unfair methods of competition, including unjustified or overbroad noncompete agreements. The letters follow a recent Commission vote to withdraw from defending the Biden-Harris administration’s nationwide noncompete ban after it was blocked by courts on constitutional grounds. In his statement about this withdrawal, Chairman Ferguson said the FTC would continue “enforcing the antitrust laws aggressively against noncompete agreements” and would keep “patrolling our markets for specific anticompetitive conduct that hurts American consumers and workers, and taking bad actors to court.”
The action comes after other recent FTC initiatives aimed at limiting restrictive employment practices. These include starting a public inquiry seeking input for possible future enforcement actions as well as ordering a major pet cremation business to stop enforcing its own noncompete agreements—an action which affected nearly 1,800 workers.
The Federal Trade Commission works to promote competition while protecting consumers through education and enforcement activities. More information about consumer benefits from competition is available on their website (https://www.ftc.gov/about-ftc/what-we-do/how-competition-benefits-you), where individuals can also file antitrust complaints (https://reportfraud.ftc.gov/#/assistant?orgcode=FTC&category=Antitrust) or comment on proposed mergers (https://www.ftc.gov/enforcement/mergers/comment-merger). For updates and resources from the agency, people can follow its social media channels or subscribe directly to press releases (https://public.govdelivery.com/accounts/USFTC/subscriber/new).
