Department of Justice Antitrust Division

Over the past several years, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has made several attempts to regulate the U.S. workplace. This includes, perhaps most notably, the FTC’s May 2024 rule attempting to ban virtually all existing and future non-compete agreements nationwide (though, at least for now, that rule has been sidelined by the courts). Against that backdrop, on January 16, 2025, the FTC and the Department of Justice Antitrust Division (DOJ) jointly issued Antitrust Guidelines for Business Activities Affecting Workers.

The guidelines, which replace the 2016 Antitrust Guidance for Human Resource Professionals, examine how the FTC and DOJ assess the legality, under federal antitrust laws, of certain business practices affecting U.S. workers. To that end, the guidelines highlight the following five examples of business practices that the FTC and DOJ consider “potential violations of the antitrust laws”:Continue Reading Labor mobility remains in the limelight – FTC and DOJ take another swing at regulating the U.S. workplace