Washington, D.C. — Following news that the Federal Trade Commission under Chair Andrew Ferguson has voluntarily dropped its legal defense of the Commission’s 2024 final rule to ban exploitative non compete agreements, the American Economic Liberties Project released the following statement.

“Andrew Ferguson has once again shown his contempt for American workers by siding with the Chamber of Commerce to scrap a straightforward ban on noncompete agreements,” said Nidhi Hegde, Executive Director of the American Economic Liberties Project. “Backed by a massive amount of public input, rigorous research, and clear legal authority, the FTC’s noncompete ban would have freed tens of millions of workers, boosted wages by hundreds of billions, and unleashed small-business dynamism. Today’s decision to walk away from that rule is a stunning betrayal of workers, entrepreneurs, and the agency’s own mission.”

“Rather than defend the strongest worker protection the agency has enacted in decades, the Trump-Vance FTC is hiding behind a one-off enforcement action and yet another public inquiry to ‘study’ the issue yet again,” added Hegde. “This is an egregious waste of taxpayer resources and cold comfort to the millions of workers, would-be entrepreneurs, and business owners struggling with these exploitative contracts.”

Learn more about Economic Liberties here.

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The American Economic Liberties Project works to ensure America’s system of commerce is structured to advance, rather than undermine, economic liberty, fair commerce, and a secure, inclusive democracy. Economic Liberties believes true economic liberty means entrepreneurs and businesses large and small succeed on the merits of their ideas and hard work; commerce empowers consumers, workers, farmers, and engineers instead of subjecting them to discrimination and abuse from financiers and monopolists; foreign trade arrangements support domestic security and democracy; and wealth is broadly distributed to support equitable political power.