By Daniel Wiessner
(Reuters) – A federal judge in Texas on Wednesday partially blocked a U.S. Federal Trade Commission rule from taking effect that would ban agreements commonly signed by workers not to join their employers' rivals or launch competing businesses.
U.S. District Judge Ada Brown in Dallas said in a written decision that the FTC, which enforces federal antitrust laws, lacked the power to adopt broad rules banning practices it considers unfair methods of competition.
According to the FTC, about 30 million people, or 20% of American workers, have signed non-compete agreements.
Brown, an appointee of former Republican President Donald Trump, blocked the FTC from enforcing the rule against a coalition of business groups, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the nation's largest business lobby, and tax services firm Ryan, pending the outcome of their consolidated lawsuits.
The rule is expected to come into force in September.
!function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s){if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod? n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version=’2.0′;n.queue=();t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)(0);s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window, document,’script’,’https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js’);
