Compliance Stuff

On January 16, 2025, in the last days of the Biden Administration, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Department of Justice (DOJ) jointly issued updated “Antitrust Guidelines for Business Activities Affecting Workers.” Over the next few minutes, we’ll explore what the Guidelines mean for employers who are recruiting, hiring, and seeking to retain their workers. As a threshold matter, it is important to recognize that these Guidelines were issued by the Biden administration just days before the transition to the new Trump administration, presumably in an attempt to continue to control policy from beyond the political grave . The new FTC Chair, Andrew Ferguson, has offered mixed comments relevant to the enforcement of Biden-era policies. While it appears the new administration is going to be pro-business , Chairman Ferguson has also stated that protecting workers from antitrust violations will be a priority for his team. The Guidelines seek to address activities such as the sharing o...

  On January 16, 2025, just days before transferring power to the new administration, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Department of Justice (DOJ) issued updated   Antitrust Guidelines for Business Activities Affecting Workers   (Guidelines) aimed at addressing business practices that impact workers. The guidelines reflect the former administration’s commitment to protecting labor markets from what it perceived as anticompetitive conduct . The timing of their release and the Trump administration’s stance, however, suggest that enforcement may not be as aggressive under the Trump administration as it would have been under the Biden administration. Overview of the New Antitrust Guidelines The FTC and DOJ’s updated Guidelines focus on anticompetitive practices in labor markets, such as wage-fixing, no-poach agreements, and other collusive behaviors that impact workers. These guidelines build on prior efforts, including the 2016 Antitrust Guidance for Human Resource P...