FTC Won’t Enforce Its Noncompete Rule, but Noncompete Enforcement Continues

On September 5, 2025, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) moved to dismiss its pending appeal of a noncompete case in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.

While the FTC’s action signals it will not enforce the current noncompete rule (and accedes to the vacatur of the rule), the move should not be seen as the agency ignoring noncompetes altogether.

Indeed, on September 4, the FTC took action to prohibit an employer from enforcing noncompete agreements against its employees. On the same day, the FTC released a Request for Information Regarding Employer Noncompete Agreements (RFI). The FTC stated that the purpose of the RFI was to “better understand the scope, prevalence, and effects of employer noncompete agreements, as well as to gather information to inform possible future enforcement actions.”

Additionally, on September 10, the FTC issued warning letters to several large health care employers advising them to thoroughly review their employment contracts to ensure any noncompete provisions are in compliance with the law. Kelse Moen, deputy director of the Bureau of Competition and co-chair of the agency’s Joint Labor Task Force, said, “Enforcement against unreasonable noncompete agreements remains a top priority for the [FTC].”

The RFI and the warning letters make clear the FTC’s opinion that noncompete agreements may be particularly troublesome in health care markets, limiting “employment options for nurses, physicians, and other medical professionals and thereby restrict[ing] patients’ choices of who provides their medical care.” The RFI and warning letters also note that these potential harms may be particularly acute “in rural areas where medical services are already stretched thin.”

To that end, the RFI has two questions specifically focused on providers of health care services. Comments on the RFI are due no later than November 3, 2025.  

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