The FTC’s once‑headline‑grabbing “ban” on noncompetes has quietly collapsed, and we’re back to a familiar patchwork: state law, garden‑variety antitrust, and a more modest FTC focusing on one‑off bad actors rather than rewriting everyone’s employment contracts.

How We Got Here (The Short Version)

In April 2024, the FTC adopted a sweeping rule that would have barred most post‑employment noncompetes nationwide and required employers to notify many current and former workers that their noncompetes were no longer enforceable. The agency grounded the rule in Section 5 of the FTC Act, calling noncompetes an “unfair method of competition” that suppresses wages and worker mobility.

The business community responded the way you would expect: with lawsuits filed in friendly forums and a race to the courthouse to stop the rule before it ever took effect. On August 20, 2024, a federal judge in the Northern District of Texas vacated the rule, holding that the FTC had gone beyond its statutory authority and that this kind of economy‑wide regulation belonged to Congress, not an independent agency. That decision effectively blocked the rule nationwide, and other challenges followed in Florida and elsewhere.

For a time, it looked like the fight would shift to the appellate courts. The FTC noticed appeals to the Fifth and Eleventh Circuits and, under the prior administration, began defending its authority to regulate noncompetes by rule. Then the political winds shifted.

The Trump Administration Hit the Reset Button

When President Trump returned to the White House in January 2025, he elevated Commissioner Andrew Ferguson, who had dissented from the noncompete rule, as FTC Chair. Ferguson had already signaled that, in his view, the FTC lacks the power to impose a one‑size‑fits‑all federal ban on noncompetes.

Within weeks, the agency asked the Fifth and Eleventh Circuits for 120‑day stays of its own appeals “in light of the change in administration” and the new leadership’s intention to reconsider the rule. Both courts granted those stays, pausing the litigation and giving the new Commission time to decide whether it wanted to keep fighting for the rule at all.

By early fall 2025, the answer was clear. In September, the Trump‑led FTC voted to withdraw its appeals, vacate the 2024 Non‑Compete Clause Rule, and walk away from the nationwide ban altogether. Employer‑side alerts described the move bluntly: the FTC had “abandoned” the rule and “closed the chapter” on a federal noncompete ban, at least for now.

What the FTC Is Doing Instead

Abandoning the rule doesn’t mean the FTC has lost interest in noncompetes; it means the agency is returning to more traditional tools.

• First, the Commission has said it will pursue noncompetes case‑by‑case where it sees clear harm: think no‑poach pacts between competitors, restrictions on low‑wage workers who pose no real competitive threat, or industry‑wide practices that look like wage‑fixing by another name.
• Second, the FTC is pairing enforcement with guidance and workshops instead of rulemaking by fiat. The agency has already teed up a 2026 workshop on noncompetes and related restraints to gather testimony from employers, workers, and economists.

In other words, the FTC is still in the noncompete business; it has just swapped a sledgehammer (a national ban) for scalpels (targeted investigations, consent orders, and the occasional test case).

The New Landscape: Back to the States

For employers and employees, the practical effect is that we’re back to where we’ve been heading for a decade: noncompete law is increasingly defined by the states, not by Washington.

Several trends continue:

• Some states (California, Oklahoma, North Dakota and a growing number of imitators in specific contexts) either ban most noncompetes outright or limit them to narrow sale‑of‑business scenarios.
• Others permit noncompetes but restrict them by salary thresholds, notice requirements, or special rules for physicians, broadcasters, and other “public interest” categories.
• Many are layering on wage‑based bans for low‑income workers, reflecting the same concerns that animated the FTC’s rule: that noncompetes should not be used as a blunt instrument against people with little bargaining power.

For multi‑state employers, the result is a more fragmented map than ever. Instead of one federal rule, they face a patchwork of statutes, choice‑of‑law issues, and local public policy exceptions. The FTC’s retreat doesn’t simplify that picture; it just removes the possibility that a nationwide ban will sweep away those differences.

What This Means for Newsrooms and Media Employers

News organizations were watching the FTC’s rule for good reason. Many broadcasters and publishers rely on noncompetes to keep on‑air talent, sales staff, and key newsroom employees from jumping immediately to a competitor across town.

With the federal rule off the table, those contracts now rise or fall on state law:

• In states that disfavor or restrict noncompetes (including rules specific to broadcasters), employers will need to lean more heavily on non‑solicitation clauses, confidentiality agreements, and trade secret protections.
• In jurisdictions more receptive to noncompetes, courts will still expect reasonable limits: a targeted scope, a duration tied to the employer’s legitimate interests, and drafting that does not read like a lifetime ban from the industry.

The FTC may still bring a case if an agreement looks abusive, say, a blanket noncompete for low‑level support staff with no access to sensitive information, but it is no longer trying to police every newsroom or studio through a single rule.

Looking Ahead

Is a federal noncompete ban “dead” in the Trump era? For the moment, yes. The 2024 rule has been vacated, the appeals have been withdrawn, and the current FTC has no appetite to resurrect it in anything like its original form. But the policy debate that produced the rule has not gone away. Worker‑mobility advocates are regrouping at the state level, plaintiffs’ lawyers are testing the limits of overbroad clauses in court, and the FTC has kept the door open to targeted enforcement in sectors where noncompetes look most like restraints of trade.

For employers, especially those with multi‑state workforces or high‑visibility talent, the homework assignment hasn’t changed: review your agreements, map them against each state’s rules, and make sure your noncompetes are narrowly tailored to what you actually need to protect. For employees, the key question is still the same one we’ve been asking for years on this site: does this contract reasonably protect the employer’s interests, or does it turn your own experience into a liability when you try to change jobs?