Antitrust: Heightening Expansion, Review, And Enforcement

Foley Forward: Trends 2023

Manufacturing companies should actively prepare for heightened antitrust scrutiny of their business practices in 2023, including practices that have not traditionally garnered the focus of the federal antitrust enforcers.

Employee noncompetes have recently come under fire from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). In the first week of 2023, the FTC announced a proposed regulation that would implement a sweeping ban on employee noncompete clauses across the United States with only a few exceptions. The proposed regulation would apply to noncompetes with all types of employees and retroactively to existing noncompete agreements. The FTC is soliciting feedback to its proposed rule through its formal comment process. Manufacturers should evaluate whether to submit comments to the FTC if the proposed ban causes harm to their legitimate business. Manufacturers should also take steps now to evaluate how they are protecting their businesses, and