The Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) Jan. 5 “Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on Non-Compete Clauses” (NPRMNCC) is the first substantive FTC Act Section 6(g) “unfair methods of competition” rulemaking initiative following the release of the FTC’s November 2022 Section 5 Unfair Methods of Competition Policy Statement. Any final rule based on the NPRMNCC stands virtually no chance of survival before the courts. What’s more, this FTC initiative also threatens to have a major negative economic-policy impact. It also poses an institutional threat to the Commission itself. Accordingly, the NPRMNCC should be withdrawn, or as a “second worst” option, substantially pared back and recast.
The NPRMNCC is succinctly described, and its legal risks ably summarized, in a recent commentary by Gibson Dunn attorneys: The proposal is sweeping in its scope. The NPRMNCC states that it “would, among other things, provide that it is an unfair method of competition for an employer to enter into or attempt to enter into a non-compete clause with a worker; to maintain with a worker a non-compete clause; or, under certain circumstances, to represent to a worker that the worker is subject to a non-compete clause.”
The Gibson Dunn commentary adds that it “would require employers to rescind all existing non-compete provisions within 180 days of publication of the final rule, and to provide current and former employees notice of the rescission. If employers comply with these two requirements, the rule would provide a safe harbor from enforcement.”
Legal Risks
As I have explained previously, any FTC Section 6(g) rulemaking is likely to fail as a matter of law. Specifically, the structure of the FTC Act indicates that Section 6(g) is best understood as authorizing procedural regulations, not substantive rules. What’s more, Section 6(g) rules raise serious questions under the U.S. Supreme Court’s nondelegation and major questions doctrines (given the breadth and ill-defined nature of “unfair methods of competition”) and under administrative law (very broad unfair methods of competition rules may be deemed “arbitrary and capricious” and raise due process concerns). The cumulative weight of these legal concerns “makes it highly improbable that substantive UMC rules will ultimately be upheld.
The legal concerns raised by Section 6(g) rulemaking are particularly acute in the case of the NPRMNCC, which is exceedingly broad and deals with a topic—employment-related noncompete clauses—with which the FTC has almost no experience. FTC Commissioner Christine Wilson highlights this legal vulnerability in her dissenting statement opposing issuance of the NPRMNCC.
As Andrew Mercado and I explained in our commentary on potential FTC noncompete rulemaking: “[a] review of studies conducted in the past two decades yields no uniform, replicable results as to whether such agreements benefit or harm workers.” In a comprehensive literature review made available online at the end of 2019, FTC economist John McAdams concluded that “[t]here is little evidence on the likely effects of broad prohibitions of non-compete agreements.” McAdams also commented on the lack of knowledge regarding the effects that noncompetes may have on ultimate consumers. Given these realities, the FTC would be particularly vulnerable to having a court hold that a final noncompete rule (even assuming that it somehow surmounted other legal obstacles) lacked an adequate factual basis, and thus was arbitrary and capricious.
The poor legal case for proceeding with the NPRMNCC is rendered even weaker by the existence of robust state-law provisions concerning noncompetes in almost every state (see here for a chart comparing state laws). Differences in state jurisprudence may enable “natural experimentation,” whereby changes made to state law that differ across jurisdictions facilitate comparisons of the effects of different approaches to noncompetes. Furthermore, changes to noncompete laws in particular states that are seen to cause harm, or generate benefits, may allow “best practices” to emerge and thereby drive welfare-enhancing reforms in multiple jurisdictions.
The Gibson Dunn commentary points out that, “[a]s a practical matter, the proposed [FTC noncompete] rule would override existing non-compete requirements and practices in the vast majority of states.” Unfortunately, then, the NPRMNCC would largely do away with the potential benefits of competitive federalism in the area of noncompetes. In light of that, federal courts might well ask whether Congress meant to give the FTC preemptive authority over a legal field traditionally left to the states, merely by making a passing reference to “mak[ing] rules and regulations” in Section 6(g) of the FTC Act. Federal judges would likely conclude that the answer to this question is “no.”
Economic Policy Harms
How much economic harm could an FTC rule on noncompetes cause, if the courts almost certainly would strike it down? Plenty.
The affront to competitive federalism, which would prevent optimal noncompete legal regimes from developing (see above), could reduce the efficiency of employment contracts and harm consumer welfare. It would be exceedingly difficult (if not impossible) to measure such harms, however, because there would be no alternative “but-for” worlds with differing rules that could be studied.
The broad ban on noncompetes predictably will prevent—or at least chill—the use of noncompete clauses to protect business-property interests (including trade secrets and other intellectual-property rights) and to protect value-enhancing investments in worker training. (See here for a 2016 U.S. Treasury Department Office of Economic Policy Report that lists some of the potential benefits of noncompetes.) The NPRMNCC fails to account for those and other efficiencies, which may be key to value-generating business-process improvements that help drive dynamic economic growth. Once again, however, it would be difficult to demonstrate the nature or extent of such foregone benefits, in the absence of “but-for” world comparisons.
Business-litigation costs would also inevitably arise, as uncertainties in the language of a final noncompete rule were worked out in court (prior to the rule’s legal demise). The opportunity cost of firm resources directed toward rule-related issues, rather than to business-improvement activities, could be substantial. The opportunity cost of directing FTC resources to wasteful noncompete-related rulemaking work, rather than potential welfare-enhancing endeavors (such as anti-fraud enforcement activity), also should not be neglected.
Finally, the substantial error costs that would attend designing and seeking to enforce a final FTC noncompete rule, and the affront to the rule of law that would result from creating a substantial new gap between FTC and U.S. Justice Department competition-enforcement regimes, merits note (see here for my discussion of these costs in the general context of UMC rulemaking).
Conclusion
What, then, should the FTC do? It should withdraw the NPRMNCC.
If the FTC is concerned about the effects of noncompete clauses, it should commission appropriate economic research, and perhaps conduct targeted FTC Act Section 6(b) studies directed at noncompetes (focused on industries where noncompetes are common or ubiquitous). In light of that research, it might be in position to address legal policy toward noncompetes in competition advocacy before the states, or in testimony before Congress.
If the FTC still wishes to engage in some rulemaking directed at noncompete clauses, it should consider a targeted FTC Act Section 18 consumer-protection rulemaking (see my discussion of this possibility, here). Unlike Section 6(g), the legality of Section 18 substantive rulemaking (which is directed at “unfair or deceptive acts or practices”) is well-established. Categorizing noncompete-clause-related practices as “deceptive” is plainly a nonstarter, so the Commission would have to bases its rulemaking on defining and condemning specified “unfair acts or practices.”
Section 5(n) of the FTC Act specifies that the Commission may not declare an act or practice to be unfair unless it “causes or is likely to cause substantial injury to consumers which is not reasonably avoidable by consumers themselves and not outweighed by countervailing benefits to consumers or to competition.” This is a cost-benefit test that plainly does not justify a general ban on noncompetes, based on the previous discussion. It probably could, however, justify a properly crafted narrower rule, such as a requirement that an employer notify its employees of a noncompete agreement before they accept a job offer (see my analysis here).
Should the FTC nonetheless charge forward and release a final competition rule based on the NPRMNCC, it will face serious negative institutional consequences. In the previous Congress, Sens. Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) have introduced legislation that would strip the FTC of its antitrust authority (leaving all federal antitrust enforcement in DOJ hands). Such legislation could gain traction if the FTC were perceived as engaging in massive institutional overreach. An unprecedented Commission effort to regulate one aspect of labor contracts (noncompete clauses) nationwide surely could be viewed by Congress as a prime example of such overreach. The FTC should keep that in mind if it values maintaining its longstanding role in American antitrust-policy development and enforcement.
[This post is a contribution to Truth on the Market‘s continuing digital symposium “FTC Rulemaking on Unfair Methods of Competition.” You can find other posts at thesymposium page here. Truth on the Market also invites academics, practitioners, and other antitrust/regulation commentators to send us 1,500-4,000 word responses for potential inclusion in the symposium.]
And what is the statement’s aim? As Commissioner Wilson aptly puts it, the statement “announces that the Commission has the authority summarily to condemn essentially any business conduct it finds distasteful.” This sweeping claim, which extends far beyond the scope of prior Commission pronouncements, might be viewed as mere puffery with no real substantive effect: “a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
Various scholarly commentators have already explored the legal and policy shortcomings of this misbegotten statement (see, for example, here, here, here, here, here, and here). Suffice it to say there is general agreement that, as Gus Hurwitz explains, the statement “is non-precedential and lacks the force of law.”
The statement’s almost certain lack of legal effect, however, does not mean it is of no consequence. Businesses are harmed by legal risk, even if they are eventually likely to prevail in court. Markets react negatively to antitrust lawsuits, and thus firms may be expected to shy away from efficient profitable behavior that may draw the FTC’s ire. The resources firms redirect to less-efficient conduct impose costs on businesses and ultimately consumers. (And when meritless FTC lawsuits still come, wasteful litigation-related costs will be coupled with unwarranted reputational harm to businesses.)
Moreover, as Wilson points out, uncertainty about what the Commission may characterize as unfair “does not allow businesses to structure their conduct to avoid possible liability. . . . [T]he Policy Statement . . . significantly increases uncertainty for businesses[,] which . . . . are left with no navigational tools to map the boundaries of lawful and unlawful conduct.” This will further disincentivize new and innovative (and easily misunderstood) business initiatives. In the perhaps-vain hope that a Commission majority will take note of these harms and have second thoughts about retention of the statement, I will briefly summarize the legal case against the statement’s effectiveness. The FTC actually would be better able to “push the Section 5 envelope” a bit through some carefully tailored innovative enforcement actions if it could jettison the legal baggage that the statement represents. To understand why, a brief review of FTC competition rulemaking and competition enforcement authority is warranted
FTC Competition Rulemaking
As I and others have written at great length (see, for examples, this compilation of essays on FTC rulemaking published by Concurrences), the case for substantive FTC competition rulemaking under Section 6(g) of the FTC Act is exceedingly weak. In particular (see my July 2022Truth on the Market commentary):
First, the “nondelegation doctrine” suggests that, under section 6(g), Congress did not confer on the FTC the specific statutory authority required to issue rules that address particular competitive practices.
Second, principles of statutory construction strongly indicate that the FTC’s general statutory provision dealing with rulemaking refers to procedural rules of organization, not substantive rules bearing on competition.
Third, even assuming that proposed competition rules survived these initial hurdles, principles of administrative law would raise the risk that competition rules would be struck down as “arbitrary and capricious.”
Fourth, there is a substantial possibility that courts would not defer to the FTC’s construction through rulemaking of its “unfair methods of competition” as authorizing the condemnation of specific competitive practices.
The 2022 statement raises these four problems in spades.
First, the Supreme Court has stated that the non-delegation doctrine requires that a statutory delegation must be supported by an “intelligible principle” guiding its application. There is no such principle that may be drawn from the statement, which emphasizes that unfair business conduct “may be coercive, exploitative, collusive, abusive, deceptive, predatory, or involve the use of economic power of a similar nature.” The conduct also must tend “to negatively affect competitive conditions – whether by affecting consumers, workers, or other market participants.” Those descriptions are so broad and all-encompassing that they are the antithesis of an “intelligible principle.”
Second, the passing nod to rulemaking referenced in Section 6(g) is best understood as an aid to FTC processes and investigations, not a source of substantive policymaking. The Supreme Court’s unanimous April 2021 decision in AMG Capital Management v. FTC (holding that the FTC could not obtain equitable monetary relief under its authority to seek injunctions) embodies a reluctance to read general non-specific language as conferring broad substantive powers on the FTC. This interpretive approach is in line with other Supreme Court case law that rejects finding “elephants in mouseholes.” While multiple federal courts had upheld the FTC’s authority to obtain injunctive monetary relief prior to its loss in the AMG case, only one nearly 50-year-old decision, National Petroleum Refiners, supports substantive competition-rulemaking authority, and its reasoning is badly dated. Nothing in the 2022 statement makes a convincing case for giving substantive import to Section 6(g).
Third, given the extremely vague terms used to describe unfair method of competition in the 2022 statement (see first point, above), any effort to invoke them to find a source of authority to define new categories of competition-related violations would be sure to raise claims of agency arbitrariness and capriciousness under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). Admittedly, the “arbitrary and capricious review” standard “has gone through numerous cycles since the enactment of the APA” and currently is subject to some uncertainty. Nevertheless, the statement’s untrammeled breadth and lack of clear definitions for unfair competitive conduct suggests that courts would likely employ a “hard look review,” which would make it relatively easy for novel Section 6(g) rules to be deemed arbitrary (especially in light of the skepticism of broad FTC claims of authority that is implicit in the Supreme Court’s unanimous AMG holding).
Fourth, given the economywide breadth of the phrase “unfair methods of competition,” it is quite possible (in fact, probably quite likely) that the Supreme Court would invoke the “major questions doctrine” and hold that unfair methods of competition rulemaking is “too important” to be left to the FTC. Under this increasingly invoked doctrine, “the Supreme Court has rejected agency claims of regulatory authority when (1) the underlying claim of authority concerns an issue of vast ‘economic and political significance,’ and (2) Congress has not clearly empowered the agency with authority over the issue.”
The fact that the 2022 statement plainly asserts vast authority to condemn a wide range of economically significant practices strengthens the already-strong case for condemning Section 5 competition rulemaking under this doctrine. Application of the doctrine would render moot the question of whether Section 6(g) rules would receive any Chevron deference. In any event, based on the 2022 Statement’s flouting of modern antitrust principles, including such core principles as consumer harm, efficiencies, and economic analysis, it appears unlikely that courts would accord such deference subsequent Section 6(g) rules. As Gus Hurwitz recently explained:
Administrative antitrust is a preferred vehicle for administering antitrust law, not for changing it. Should the FTC use its power aggressively, in ways that disrupt longstanding antitrust principles or seem more grounded in policy better created by Congress, it is likely to find itself on the losing side of the judicial opinion.
FTC Competition-Enforcement Authority
In addition to Section 6(g) competition-rulemaking initiatives, the 2022 statement, of course, aims to inform FTC Act Section 5(a) “unfair methods of competition” (UMC) enforcement actions. The FTC could bring a UMC suit before its own administrative tribunal or, in the alternative, seek to enjoin an alleged unfair method of competition in federal district court, pursuant to its authority under Section 13(b) of the FTC Act. The tenor of the 2022 statement undermines, rather than enhances, the likelihood that the FTC will succeed in “standalone Section 5(a)” lawsuits that challenge conduct falling beyond the boundaries of the Sherman and Clayton Antitrust Acts.
[C]ourts have confirmed that the unilateral exercise of lawfully acquired market power does not violate the antitrust laws. Therefore, the attempted use of standalone Section 5 to address high prices, untethered from accepted theories of antitrust liability under the Sherman Act, is unlikely to find success in the courts.
There have been no jurisprudential changes since 2019 to suggest that a UMC suit challenging the exploitation of lawfully obtained market power by raising prices is likely to find judicial favor. It follows, a fortiori (legalese that I seldom have the opportunity to trot out), that the more “far out” standalone suits implied by the statement’s analysis would likely generate embarrassing FTC judicial losses.
Applying three of the four principles assessed in the analysis of FTC competition rulemaking (the second principle, referring to statutory authority for rulemaking, is inapplicable), the negative influence of the statement on FTC litigation outcomes is laid bare.
First, as is the case with rules, the unconstrained laundry list of “unfair” business practices fails to produce an “intelligible principle” guiding the FTC’s exercise of enforcement discretion. As such, courts could well conclude that, if the statement is to be taken seriously, the non-delegation doctrine applies, and the FTC does not possess delegated UMC authority. Even if such authority were found to have been properly delegated, some courts might separately conclude, on due process grounds, that the UMC prohibition is “void for vagueness” and therefore cannot support an enforcement action. (While the “void for vagueness” doctrine is controversial, related attacks on statutes based on “impossibility of compliance” may have a more solid jurisprudential footing, particularly in the case of civil statutes (see here). The breadth and uncertainty of the statement’s references to disfavored conduct suggests “impossibility of compliance” as a possible alternative critique of novel Section 5 competition cases.) These concerns also apply equally to possible FTC Section 13(b) injunctive actions filed in federal district court.
Second, there is a not insubstantial risk that an appeals court would hold that a final Section 5 competition-enforcement decision by the Commission would be “arbitrary and capricious” if it dealt with behavior far outside the scope of the Sherman or Clayton Acts, based on vague policy pronouncements found in the 2022 statement.
Third, and of greatest risk to FTC litigation prospects, it is likely that appeals courts (and federal district courts in Section 13(b) injunction cases) would give no deference to new far-reaching non-antitrust-based theories alluded to in the statement. As discussed above, this could be based on invocation of the major questions doctrine or, separately, on the (likely) failure to accord Chevron deference to theories that are far removed from recognized antitrust causes of action under modern jurisprudence.
What Should the FTC Do About the Statement?
In sum, the startling breadth and absence of well-defined boundaries that plagues the statement’s discussion of potential Section 5 UMC violations means that the statement’s issuance materially worsens the FTC’s future litigation prospects—both in defending UMC rulemakings and in seeking to affirm case-specific Commission findings of UMC violations.
What, then, should the FTC do?
It should, put simply, withdraw the 2022 statement and craft a new UMC policy statement (NPS) that avoids the major pitfalls inherent in the statement. The NPS should carefully delineate the boundaries of standalone UMC rulemakings and cases, so as (1) to minimize uncertainty in application; and (2) to harmonize UMC actions with the pro-consumer welfare goal (as enunciated by the Supreme Court) of the antitrust laws. In drafting the NPS, the FTC would do well to be mindful of the part of Commissioner Wilson’s dissenting statement that highlights the deficiencies in the 2022 statement that detract from its persuasiveness to courts:
First, . . . the Policy Statement does not provide clear guidance to businesses seeking to comply with the law.
Second, the Policy Statement does not establish an approach for the term “unfair” in the competition context that matches the economic and analytical rigor that Commission policy offers for the same term, “unfair,” in the consumer protection context.
Third, the Policy Statement does not provide a framework that will result in credible enforcement. Instead, Commission actions will be subject to the vicissitudes of prevailing political winds.
Fourth, the Policy Statement does not address the legislative history that both demands economic content for the term “unfair” and cautions against an expansive approach to enforcing Section 5.
Consistent with avoiding these deficiencies, a new PS could carefully identify activities that are beyond the reach of the antitrust laws yet advance the procompetitive consumer-welfare-oriented goal that is the lodestar of antitrust policy. The NPS should also be issued for public comment (as recommended by Commissioner Wilson), an action that could give it additional “due process luster” in the eyes of federal judges.
More specifically, the NPS could state that standalone UMC actions should be directed at private conduct that undermines the competitive process, but is not subject to the reach of the antitrust laws (say, because of the absence of contracts). Such actions might include, for example: (1) invitations to collude; (2) facilitating practices (“activities that tend to promote interdependence by reducing rivals’ uncertainty or diminishing incentives to deviate from a coordinated strategy”—see here); (3) exchanges of competitively sensitive information among competitors that do not qualify as Sherman Act “agreements” (see here); and (4) materially deceptive conduct (lacking efficiency justifications) that likely contributes to obtaining or increasing market power, as in the standard-setting context (see here); and (5) non-compete clauses in labor employment agreements that lack plausible efficiency justifications (say, clauses in contracts made with low-skill, low-salary workers) or otherwise plainly undermine labor-market competition (say, clauses presented to workers only after they have signed an initial contract, creating a “take-it-or-leave-it scenario” based on asymmetric information).
After promulgating a list of examples, the NPS could explain that additional possible standalone UMC actions would be subject to the same philosophical guardrails: They would involve conduct inconsistent with competition on the merits that is likely to harm consumers and that lacks strong efficiency justifications.
A revised NPS along the lines suggested would raise the probability of successful UMC judicial outcomes for the Commission. It would do this by strengthening the FTC’s arguments that there is an intelligible principle underlying congressional delegation; that specificity of notice is sufficient to satisfy due process (arbitrariness and capriciousness) concerns; that the Section 5 delegation is insufficiently broad to trigger the major questions doctrine; and that Chevron deference may be accorded determinations stemming from precise NPS guidance.
In the case of rules, of course, the FTC would still face the substantial risk that a court would deem that Section 6(g) does not apply to substantive rulemakings. And it is far from clear to what extent an NPS along the lines suggested would lead courts to render more FTC-favorable rulings on non-delegation, due process, the major questions doctrine, and Chevron deference. Moreover, even if they entertained UMC suits, the courts could, of course, determine in individual cases that, on the facts, the Commission had failed to show a legal violation. (The FTC has never litigated invitation-to-collude cases, and it lost a variety of facilitating practices cases during the 1980s and 1990s; see here).
Nonetheless, if I were advising the FTC as general counsel, I would tell the commissioners that the choice is between having close to a zero chance of litigation or rulemaking success under the 2022 statement, and some chance of success (greater in the case of litigation than in rulemaking) under the NPS.
Conclusion
The FTC faces a future of total UMC litigation futility if it plows ahead under the 2022 statement. Promulgating an NPS as described would give the FTC at least some chance of success in litigating cases beyond the legal limits of the antitrust laws, assuming suggested principles and guardrails were honored. The outlook for UMC rulemaking (which turns primarily on how the courts view the structure of the FTC Act) remains rather dim, even under a carefully crafted NPS.
If the FTC decides against withdrawing the 2022 statement, it could still show some wisdom by directing more resources to competition advocacy and challenging clearly anticompetitive conduct that falls within the accepted boundaries of the antitrust laws. (Indeed, to my mind, error-cost considerations suggest that the Commission should eschew UMC causes of action that do not also constitute clear antitrust offenses.) It need not undertake almost sure-to-fail UMC initiatives just because it has published the 2022 statement.
In short, treating the 2022 statement as a purely symbolic vehicle to showcase the FTC’s fondest desires—like a new, never-to-be-driven Lamborghini that merely sits in the driveway to win the admiring glances of neighbors—could well be the optimal Commission strategy, given the zeitgeist. That assumes, of course, that the FTC cares about protecting its institutional future and (we also hope) promoting economic well-being.
[On Monday, June 27, Concurrenceshosted a conference on the Rulemaking Authority of the Federal Trade Commission.This conference featured the work of contributors to a new book on the subject edited by Professor Dan Crane. Several of these authors have previously contributed to the Truth on the Market FTC UMC Symposium. We are pleased to be able to share with you excerpts or condensed versions of chapters from this book prepared by authors of of those chapters. Our thanks and compliments to Dan and Concurrences for bringing together an outstanding event and set of contributors and for supporting our sharing them with you here.]
[The post below was authored by former Federal Trade Commission Acting Chair Maureen K. Ohlhausen and former FTC Senior Attorney Ben Rossen.]
Introduction
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has long steered the direction of competition law by engaging in case-by-case enforcement of the FTC Act’s prohibition on unfair methods of competition (UMC). Recently, some have argued that the FTC’s exclusive reliance on case-by-case adjudication is too long and arduous a route and have urged the commission to take a shortcut by invoking its purported authority to promulgate UMC rules under Section 6(g) of the Federal Trade Commission Act.
Proponents of UMC rulemaking rely on National Petroleum Refiners Association v. FTC, a 1973 decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit that upheld the commission’s authority to issue broad legislative rules under the FTC Act. They argue that the case provides a clear path to UMC rules and that Congress effectively ratified the D.C. Circuit’s decision when it enacted detailed rulemaking procedures governing unfair or deceptive acts or practices (UDAP) in the Magnuson Moss Warranty-Federal Trade Commission Improvement Act of 1975 (Magnuson-Moss).
The premise of this argument is fundamentally incorrect, because modern courts reject the type of permissive statutory analysis applied in National Petroleum Refiners. Moreover, contemporaneous congressional reaction to National Petroleum Refiners was not to embrace broad FTC rulemaking, but rather to put in strong guardrails on FTC UDAP rulemaking. Further, the congressional history of the particular FTC rule at issue—the Octane Ratings Rule—also points in the direction of a lack of broad UMC rulemaking, as Congress eventually adopted the rule solely as a UDAP provision, with heightened restrictions on FTC rulemaking.
Thus, the road to UMC rulemaking, which the agency wisely never tried to travel down in the almost 50 years since National Petroleum Refiners, is essentially a dead end. If the agency tries to go that route, it will be an unfortunate detour from its clear statutory direction to engage in case-by-case enforcement of Section 5.
Broad UMC-Rulemaking Authority Contradicts the History and Evolution of the FTC’s Authority
The FTC Act grants the commission broad authority to investigate unfair methods of competition and unfair and deceptive acts or practices across much of the American economy. The FTC’s administrative adjudicative authority under “Part 3” is central to the FTC’s mission of preserving fair competition and protecting consumers, as reflected by the comprehensive adjudicative framework established in Section 5 of the FTC Act. Section 6, meanwhile, details the commission’s investigative powers to collect confidential business information and conduct industry studies.
The original FTC Act contained only one sentence describing the agency’s ability to make rules, buried inconspicuously among various other provisions. Section 6(g) provided that the FTC would have authority “[f]rom time to time [to] classify corporations and . . . to make rules and regulations for the purpose of carrying out the provisions of this [Act].”[1]Unlike the detailed administrative scheme in Section 5, the FTC Act fails to provide for any sanctions for violations of rules promulgated under Section 6 or to otherwise specify that such rules would carry the force of law. This minimal delegation of power arguably conferred the right to issue procedural but not substantive rules.
Consistent with the understanding that Congress did not authorize substantive rulemaking, the FTC made no attempt to promulgate rules with the force of law for nearly 50 years after it was created, and at various times indicated that it lacked the authority to do so.
In 1962, the agency for the first time began to promulgate consumer-protection trade-regulation rules (TRRs), citing its authority under Section 6(g). Although these early TRRs plainly addressed consumer-protection matters, the agency frequently described violations of the rule as both an unfair method of competition and an unfair or deceptive trade practice. As the commission itself has observed, “[n]early all of the rules that the Commission actually promulgated under Section 6(g) were consumer protection rules.”
In fact, in the more than 100 years of the FTC Act, the agency has only once issued a solely competition rule. In 1967, the commission promulgated the Men and Boys’ Tailored Clothing Rule pursuant to authority under the Clayton Act, which prohibited apparel suppliers from granting discriminatory-advertising allowances that limited small retailers’ ability to compete. However, the rule was never enforced or subject to challenge and was subsequently repealed.
Soon after, the FTC promulgated the octane-ratings rule at issue in National Petroleum Refiners. Proponents of UMC rulemaking, such as former FTC Commissioner Rohit Chopra and current Chair Lina Khan, point to the case as evidence that the commission retains the power to promulgate substantive competition rules, governed only by the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) and, with respect to interpretations of UMC, entitled to Chevron deference. They argue that UMC rulemaking would provide significant benefits by providing clear notice to market participants about what the law requires, relieving the steep expert costs and prolonged trials common to antitrust adjudications, and fostering a “transparent and participatory process” that would provide meaningful public participation.
With Khan at the helm of the FTC, the agency has already begun to pave the way for new UMC rulemakings. For example, President Joe Biden’s Executive Order on promoting competition called on the commission to promulgate UMC rules to address noncompete clauses and pay-for-delay settlements, among other issues. Further, as one of Khan’s first actions as chair, the commission rescinded—without replacing—its bipartisan Statement of Enforcement Principles Regarding “Unfair Methods of Competition” Under Section 5 of the FTC Act. More recently, the commission’s Statement of Regulatory Priorities stated that the FTC “will consider developing both unfair-methods-of-competition rulemakings as well as rulemakings to define with specificity unfair or deceptive acts or practices.” This foray into UMC rulemaking is likely to take the FTC down a dead-end road.
The Signs Are Clear: National Petroleum Refiners Does Not Comport with Modern Principles of Statutory Interpretation
The FTC’s authority to conduct rulemaking under Section 6(g) has been tested in court only once, in National Petroleum Refiners, where the D.C. Circuit upheld the commission’s authority to promulgate a UDAP and UMC rule requiring the disclosure of octane ratings on gasoline pumps. The court found that Section 6(g) “clearly states that the Commission ‘may’ make rules and regulations for the purpose of carrying out the provisions of Section 5” and liberally construed the term ‘rules and regulations’ based on the background and purpose of the FTC Act.” The court’s opinion rested, in part, on pragmatic concerns about the benefits that rulemaking provides to fulfilling the agency’s mission, emphasizing the “invaluable resource-saving flexibility” it provides and extolling the benefits of rulemaking over case-by-case adjudication when developing agency policy.
National Petroleum Refiners reads today like an anachronism. Few modern courts would agree that an ambiguous grant of rulemaking authority should be construed to give agencies the broadest possible powers so that they will have flexibility in determining how to effectuate their statutory mandates. The Supreme Court has never adopted this approach and recent decisions strongly suggest it would decline to do so if presented the opportunity.
The D.C. Circuit’s opinion is in clear tension with the “elephants-in-mouseholes” doctrine first described by the U.S. Supreme Court in Whitman v. Am. Trucking Ass’n, because it largely ignored the significance of the FTC Act’s detailed adjudicative framework. The D.C. Circuit’s reasoning—that Congress buried sweeping legislative-rulemaking authority in a vague, ancillary provision, alongside the ability to “classify corporations”—stands in direct conflict with the Supreme Court’s admonition in Whitman.
Modern courts would also look to interpret the structure of the FTC Act to produce a coherent enforcement scheme. For instance, in AMG Capital Management v. FTC, the Supreme Court struck down the FTC’s use of Section 13(b) to obtain equitable monetary relief, in part, because the FTC Act elsewhere imposes specific limitations on the commission’s authority to obtain monetary relief. Unlike National Petroleum Refiners, which lauded the benefits and efficiencies of rulemaking for the agency’s mission, the AMG court reasoned: “Our task here is not to decide whether [the FTC’s] substitution of § 13(b) for the administrative procedure contained in § 5 and the consumer redress available under § 19 is desirable. Rather, it is to answer a more purely legal question” of whether Congress granted authority or not. The same rationale applies to UMC rulemaking.
The unanimous AMG decision was no judicial detour, and the Supreme Court has routinelyposted clear road signs that Congress is expected “to speak clearly when authorizing an agency to exercise powers of vast economic and political significance,” as UMC rulemaking would do. Since 2000, the Court has increasingly applied the “major questions doctrine” to limit the scope of congressional delegation to the administrative state in areas of major political or economic importance. For example, in FDA v. Brown & Williamson, the Supreme Court declined to grant Chevron deference to an FDA rule permitting the agency to regulate nicotine and cigarettes. Crucial to the Court’s analysis was that the FDA’s rule contradicted the agency’s own view of its authority dating back to 1914, while asserting jurisdiction over a significant portion of the American economy. In Utility Air Regulatory Group v. EPA, the Court invoked the major questions doctrine to strike down the Environmental Protection Agency’s greenhouse-gas emissions standards as an impermissible interpretation of the Clean Air Act, finding that “EPA’s interpretation is [] unreasonable because it would bring about an enormous and transformative expansion in [the] EPA’s regulatory authority without clear congressional authorization.”
Most recently, in West Virginia v. EPAthe Court relied on the major questions doctrine to strike down EPA emissions rules that would have imposed billions of dollars in compliance costs on power plants, concluding that Congress had not provided “clear congressional authorization” for the rules despite explicitly authorizing the agency to set emissions levels for existing plants. Because broad UMC-rulemaking authority under Section 6(g) is similarly a question of potentially “vast economic and political significance,” and would also represent a significant departure from past agency precedent, the FTC’s efforts to promulgate such rules would likely be met by a flashing red light.
Finally, while National Petroleum Refiners lauded the benefits of rulemaking authority and emphasized its usefulness for carrying out the FTC’s mission, the Supreme Court has since clarified that “[h]owever sensible (or not)” an interpretation may be, “a reviewing court’s task is to apply the text of the statute, not to improve upon it.” Whatever benefits rulemaking authority may confer on the FTC, they cannot justify departure from the text of the FTC Act.
The Road Not Taken: Congress Did Not Ratify UMC-Rulemaking Authority and the FTC Did Not Assert It
Two years after National Petroleum Refiners, Congress enacted the Magnuson-Moss Warranty-Federal Trade Commission Improvement Act of 1975 (Magnuson-Moss). Section 202(a) of Magnuson-Moss amended the FTC Act to add a new Section 18 that, for the first time, gave the FTC express authority to issue UDAP rules, while imposing heightened procedural requirements for such rulemaking. Magnuson-Moss does not expressly address UMC rulemaking. Instead, it says only that Section 18 “shall not affect any authority of the Commission to prescribe rules (including interpretive rules), and general statements of policy, with respect to unfair methods of competition in or affecting commerce.” Section 6(g) currently authorizes the FTC “(except as provided in [section 18] of this title) to make rules and regulations for the purpose of carrying out the provisions of this subchapter.”
UMC-rulemaking proponents argue Magnuson-Moss effectively ratified National Petroleum Refiners and affirmed the commission’s authority with respect to substantive UMC rules. This revisionist interpretation is incorrect. The savings provision in Section 18(a)(2) that preserves “any authority” (as opposed to “the” authority) of the commission to prescribe UMC rules reflects, at most, an agnostic view on whether the FTC, in fact, possesses such authority. Rather, it suggests that whatever authority may exist for UMC rulemaking was unchanged by Section 18 and that Congress left the question open for the courts to resolve. The FTC itself appears to have recognized this uncertainty, as evidenced by the fact that it has never even attempted to promulgate a UMC rule in the nearly 50 years following the enactment of Magnuson-Moss.
Congressional silence on UMC hardly endorses the commission’s authority and is not likely to persuade an appellate court today. To rely on congressional acquiescence to a judicial interpretation, there must be “overwhelming evidence” that Congress considered and rejected the “precise issue” before the court. Although Congress considered adopting National Petroleum Refiners, it ultimately took no action on the FTC’s UMC-rulemaking authority. Hardly the “overwhelming evidence” required to read National Petroleum Refiners into the law.
The Forgotten Journey: The History of the Octane-Ratings Rule Reinforces the FTC’s Lack of UMC Rulemaking Authority
Those who argue that National Petroleum Refiners is still good law and that Congress silently endorsed UMC rulemaking have shown no interest in how the journey of the octane-ratings rule eventually ended. The FTC’s 1971 octane-ratings rule declared the failure to post octane disclosures on gasoline pumps both an unfair method of competition and an unfair or deceptive practice. But what has remained unexplored in the debate over FTC UMC rulemaking is what happened to the rule after the D.C. Circuit’s decision upheld rulemaking under Section 6(g), and what that tells us about congressional and agency views on UMC authority.
The octane-ratings rule upheld by the D.C. Circuit never took effect and was ultimately replaced when Congress enacted the Petroleum Marketing Practices Act (PMPA), Title II of which addressed octane-disclosure requirements and directed the FTC to issue new rules under the PMPA. But despite previous claims by the FTC that the rule drew on both UDAP and UMC authority, Congress declined to provide any authority beyond UDAP. While it is impossible to say whether Congress concluded that UMC rulemaking was unwise, illegal, or simply unnecessary, the PMPA—passed just two years after Magnuson-Moss—suggests that UMC rulemaking did not survive the enactment of Section 18. A brief summary of the rule’s meandering journey follows.
After the D.C. Circuit remanded National Petroleum Refiners, the district court ordered the FTC to complete an environmental-impact statement. While that analysis was pending, Congress began consideration of the PMPA. After its enactment, the commission understood Congress to have intended the requirements of Title II of the PMPA to replace those of the original octane-ratings rule. The FTC treated the enactment of the PMPA as effectively repealing the rule.
Section 203(a) of the PMPA gave the FTC rulemaking power to enforce compliance with Title II of the PMPA. Testimony in House subcommittee hearings centered on whether the legislation should direct the FTC to enact a TRR on octane ratings under expedited procedures that would be authorized by the legislation, or whether Congress should enact its own statutory requirements. Ultimately, Congress adopted a statutory definition of octane ratings (identical to the method adopted by the FTC in its 1971 rule) and granted the FTC rulemaking authority under the APA to update definitions and prescribe different procedures for determining fuel-octane ratings. Congress also specified that certain rules—such as those requiring manufacturers to display octane requirements on motor vehicles—would have heightened rulemaking procedures, such as rulemaking on the record after a hearing.
Notably, the PMPA specifically provides that violations of the statute, or any rule promulgated under the statute, “shall be an unfair or deceptive act or practice in or affecting commerce.” Although Section 203(d)(3) of the PMPA specifically exempts the FTC from the procedural requirements under Section 18, it does not simply revert to Section 6(g) or otherwise leave open a path for UMC rulemaking.
The record makes clear, however, that Congress was aware of FTC’s desire to claim UMC authority in connection with the octane-ratings rule, as FTC officials testified in legislative hearings that UMC authority was necessary to regulate octane ratings. After Magnuson-Moss was enacted, however, neither Congress nor the FTC tried to include UMC rulemaking in the PMPA. In a written statement reflecting the FTC’s views on the PMPA incorporated in the House report, the FTC described its original octane-ratings rule as UDAP only.[2] While not dispositive, the FTC’s apparent abandonment of its request for UMC authority after Magnuson-Moss, and Congress’ decision to limit the PMPA exclusively to UDAP, certainly suggests that UMC did not survive National Petroleum Refiners and that Congress did not endorse FTC UMC rulemaking.
Conclusion
The FTC appears poised to embark on a journey of broad, legislative-style competition rulemaking under Section 6(g) of the FTC Act. This would be a dead end. UMC rulemaking, rather than advancing clarity and certainty about what types of conduct constitute unfair methods of competition, would very likely be viewed by the courts as an illegal left turn. It would also be a detour for the agency from its core mission of case-by-case expert adjudication of the FTC Act—which, given limited agency resources, could result in a years-long escapade that significantly detracts from overall enforcement. The FTC should instead seek to build on the considerable success it has seen in recent years with administrative adjudications, both in terms of winning on appeal and in shaping the development of antitrust law overall by creating citable precedent in key areas.
[1] H. Rep. No. 95-161, at 45, Appendix II, Federal Trade Commission—Agency Views, Statement of Federal Trade Commission by Christian S. White, Asst. Director for Special Statutes (Feb. 23, 1977).
[2] 38 Stat. 722 § 6(g), codified as amended at 15 U.S.C. § 46(g).
[On Monday, June 27, Concurrenceshosted a conference on the Rulemaking Authority of the Federal Trade Commission.This conference featured the work of contributors to a new book on the subject edited by Professor Dan Crane. Several of these authors have previously contributed to the Truth on the Market FTC UMC Symposium. We are pleased to be able to share with you excerpts or condensed versions of chapters from this book prepared by authors of of those chapters. Our thanks and compliments to Dan and Concurrences for bringing together an outstanding event and set of contributors and for supporting our sharing them with you here.]
[The post below was authored by former Federal Trade Commission Acting Chair Maureen K. Ohlhausen and former Assistant U.S. Attorney General James F. Rill.]
Since its founding in 1914, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has held a unique and multifaceted role in the U.S. administrative state and the economy. It possesses powerful investigative and information-gathering powers, including through compulsory processes; a multi-layered administrative-adjudication process to prosecute “unfair methods of competition (UMC)” (and later, “unfair and deceptive acts and practices (UDAP),” as well); and an important role in educating and informing the business community and the public. What the FTC cannot be, however, is a legislature with broad authority to expand, contract, or alter the laws that Congress has tasked it with enforcing.
Recent proposals for aggressive UMC rulemaking, predicated on Section 6(g) of the FTC Act, would have the effect of claiming just this sort of quasi-legislative power for the commission based on a thin statutory reed authorizing “rules and regulations for the purpose of carrying out the provisions of” that act. This usurpation of power would distract the agency from its core mission of case-by-case expert application of the FTC Act through administrative adjudication. It would also be inconsistent with the explicit grants of rulemaking authority that Congress has given the FTC and run afoul of the congressional and constitutional “guard rails” that cabin the commission’s authority.
FTC’s Unique Role as an Administrative Adjudicator
The FTC’s Part III adjudication authority is central to its mission of preserving fair competition in the U.S. economy. The FTC has enjoyed considerable success in recent years with its administrative adjudications, both in terms of winning on appeal and in shaping the development of antitrust law overall (not simply a separate category of UMC law) by creating citable precedent in key areas. However, as a result of its July 1, 2021, open meeting and President Joe Biden’s “Promoting Competition in the American Economy” executive order, the FTC appears to be headed for another misadventure in response to calls to claim authority for broad, legislative-style “unfair methods of competition” rulemaking out of Section 6(g) of the FTC Act. The commission recently took a significant and misguided step toward this goal by rescinding—without replacing—its bipartisan Statement of Enforcement Principles Regarding “Unfair Methods of Competition” Under Section 5 of the FTC Act, divorcing (at least in the commission majority’s view) Section 5 from prevailing antitrust-law principles and leaving the business community without any current guidance as to what the commission considers “unfair.”
FTC’s Rulemaking Authority Was Meant to Complement its Case-by-Case Adjudicatory Authority, Not Supplant It
As described below, broad rulemaking of this sort would likely encounter stiff resistance in the courts, due to its tenuous statutory basis and the myriad constitutional and institutional problems it creates. But even aside from the issue of legality, such a move would distract the FTC from its fundamental function as an expert case-by-case adjudicator of competition issues. It would be far too tempting for the commission to simply regulate its way to the desired outcome, bypassing all neutral arbiters along the way. And by seeking to promulgate such rules through abbreviated notice-and-comment rulemaking, the FTC would be claiming extremely broad substantive authority to directly regulate business conduct across the economy with relatively few of the procedural protections that Congress felt necessary for the FTC’s trade-regulation rules in the consumer-protection context. This approach risks not only a diversion of scarce agency resources from meaningful adjudication opportunities, but also potentially a loss of public legitimacy for the commission should it try to exempt itself from these important rulemaking safeguards.
FTC Lacks Authority to Promulgate Legislative-Style Competition Rules
The FTC has historically been hesitant to exercise UMC rulemaking authority under Section 6(g) of the FTC Act, which simply states that FTC shall have power “[f]rom time to time to classify corporations and … to make rules and regulations for the purpose of carrying out the provisions” of the FTC Act. Current proponents of UMC rulemaking argue for a broad interpretation of this clause, allowing for legally binding rulemaking on any issue subject to the FTC’s jurisdiction. But the FTC’s past reticence to exercise such sweeping powers is likely due to the existence of significant and unresolved questions of the FTC’s UMC rulemaking authority from both a statutory and constitutional perspective.
Absence of Statutory Authority
The FTC’s authority to conduct rulemaking under Section 6(g) has been tested in court only once, in National Petroleum Refiners Association v. FTC. In that case, the FTC succeeded in classifying the failure to post octane ratings on gasoline pumps as “an unfair method of competition.” The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit found that Section 6(g) did confer this rulemaking authority. But Congress responded two years later with the Magnuson-Moss Warranty-Federal Trade Commission Improvement Act of 1975, which created a new rulemaking scheme that applied exclusively to the FTC’s consumer-protection rules. This act expressly excluded rulemaking on unfair methods of competition from its authority. The statute’s provision that UMC rulemaking is unaffected by the legislation manifests strong congressional design that such rules would be governed not by Magnuson-Moss, but by the FTC Act itself. The reference in Magnuson-Moss to the statute not affecting “any authority” of the FTC to engage in UMC rulemaking—as opposed to “the authority”— reflects Congress’ agnostic view on whether the FTC possessed any such authority. It simply means that whatever authority exists for UMC rulemaking, the Magnuson-Moss provisions do not affect it, and Congress left the question open for the courts to resolve.
Proponents of UMC rulemaking argue that Magnuson-Moss left the FTC’s competition-rulemaking authority intact and entitled to Chevrondeference. But, as has been pointed out by many commentators over the decades, that would be highly incongruous, given that National Petroleum Refiners dealt with both UMC and UDAP authority under Section 6(g), yet Congress’ reaction was to provide specific UDAP rulemaking authority and expressly take no position on UMC rulemaking. As further evidenced by the fact that the FTC has never attempted to promulgate a UMC rule in the years following enactment of Magnuson-Moss, the act is best read as declining to endorse the FTC’s UMC rulemaking authority. Instead, it leaves the question open for future consideration by the courts.
Turning to the terms of the FTC Act, modern statutory interpretation takes a far different approach than the court in National Petroleum Refiners, which discounted the significance of Section 5’s enumeration of adjudication as the means for restraining UMC and UDAP, reasoning that Section 5(b) did not use limiting language and that Section 6(g) provides a source of substantive rulemaking authority. This approach is in clear tension with the elephants-in-mouseholes doctrine developed by the Supreme Court in recent years. The FTC’s recent claim of broad substantive UMC rulemaking authority based on the absence of limiting language and a vague, ancillary provision authorizing rulemaking alongside the ability to “classify corporations” stands in conflict with the Court’s admonition in Whitman v. American Trucking Association. The Court in AMG Capital Management, LLC v. FTCrecently applied similar principles in the context of the FTC’s authority under the FTC Act. Here,the Court emphasized “the historical importance of administrative proceedings” and declined to give the FTC a shortcut to desirable outcomes in federal court. Similarly, granting broad UMC-rulemaking authority to the FTC would permit it to circumvent the FTC Act’s defining feature of case-by-case adjudications. Applying the principles enunciated in Whitman and AMG, Section 5 is best read as specifying the sole means of UMC enforcement (adjudication), and Section 6(g) is best understood as permitting the FTC to specify how it will carry out its adjudicative, investigative, and informative functions. Thus, Section 6(g) grants ministerial, not legislative, rulemaking authority.
Notably, this reading of the FTC Act would accord with how the FTC viewed its authority until 1962, a fact that the D.C. Circuit found insignificant, but that later doctrine would weigh heavily. Courts should consider an agency’s “past approach” toward its interpretation of a statute, and an agency’s longstanding view that it lacks the authority to take a certain action is a “rather telling” clue that the agency’s newfound claim to such authority is incorrect. Conversely, even widespread judicial acceptance of an interpretation of an agency’s authority does not necessarily mean the construction of the statute is correct. In AMG, the Court gave little weight to the FTC’s argument that appellate courts “have, until recently, consistently accepted its interpretation.” It also rejected the FTC’s argument that “Congress has in effect twice ratified that interpretation in subsequent amendments to the Act.” Because the amendments did not address the scope of Section 13(b), they did not convince the Court in AMG that Congress had acquiesced in the lower courts’ interpretation.
The court in National Petroleum Refiners also lauded the benefits of rulemaking authority and emphasized that the ability to promulgate rules would allow the FTC to carry out the purpose of the act. But the Supreme Court has emphasized that “however sensible (or not)” an interpretation may be, “a reviewing court’s task is to apply the text of the statute, not to improve upon it.” Whatever benefits UMC-rulemaking authority may confer on the FTC, they cannot justify departure from the text of the FTC Act.
In sum, even Chevronrequires the agency to rely on a “permissible construction” of the statute, and it is doubtful that the current Supreme Court would see a broad assertion of substantive antitrust rulemaking as “permissible” under the vague language of Section 6(g).
Constitutional Vulnerabilities
The shaky foundation supporting the FTC’s claimed authority for UMC rulemaking is belied by both the potential breadth of such rules and the lack of clear guidance in Section 6(g) itself. The presence of either of these factors increases the likelihood that any rule promulgated under Section 6 runs afoul of the constitutional nondelegation doctrine.
The nondelegation doctrine requires Congress to provide “an intelligible principle” to assist the agency to which it has delegated legislative discretion. Although long considered moribund, the doctrine was recently addressed by the U.S. Supreme Court in Gundy v. United States, which underscored the current relevance of limitations on Congress’ ability to transfer unfettered legislative-like powers to federal agencies. Although the statute in that case was ruled permissible by a plurality of justices, most of the Court’s current members have expressed concerns that the Court has long been too quick to reject nondelegation arguments, arguing for stricter controls in this area. In a concurrence, Justice Samuel Alito lamented that the Court has “uniformly rejected nondelegation arguments and has upheld provisions that authorized agencies to adopt important rules pursuant to extraordinarily capacious standards,” while Justices Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas and Chief Justice John Roberts dissented, decrying the “unbounded policy choices” Congress had bestowed, stating that it “is delegation running riot” to “hand off to the nation’s chief prosecutor the power to write his own criminal code.”
The Gundy dissent cited to A.L.A. Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States, where the Supreme Court struck down Congress’ delegation of authority based on language very similar to Section 5 of the FTC Act. Schechter Poultry examined whether the authority that Congress granted to the president under the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) violated the nondelegation clause. The offending NIRA provision gave the president authority to approve “codes of fair competition,” which comes uncomfortably close to the FTC Act’s “unfair methods of competition” grant of authority. Notably, Schechter Poultry expressly differentiated NIRA from the FTC Act based on distinctions that do not apply in the rulemaking context. Specifically, the Court stated that, despite the similar delegation of authority, unlike NIRA, actions under the FTC Act are subject to an adjudicative process. The Court observed that the commission serves as “a quasi judicial body” and assesses what constitutes unfair methods of competition “in particular instances, upon evidence, in light of particular competitive conditions.” That essential distinction disappears in the case of rulemaking, where the commission acts in a quasi-legislative role and promulgates rules of broad application.
It appears that the nondelegation doctrine may be poised for a revival and may play a significant role in the Supreme Court’s evaluation of expansive attempts by the Biden administration to exercise legislative-type authority without explicit congressional authorization and guidance. This would create a challenging backdrop for the FTC to attempt aggressive new UMC rulemaking.
Antitrust Rulemaking by FTC Is Likely to Lead to Inefficient Outcomes and Institutional Conflicts
Aside from the doubts raised by these significant statutory and constitutional issues as to the legality of competition rulemaking by the FTC, there are also several policy and institutional factors counseling against legislative-style antitrust rulemaking.
Legislative Rulemaking on Competition Issues Runs Contrary to the Purpose of Antitrust Law
The core of U.S. antitrust law is based on broadly drafted statutes that, at least for violations outside the criminal-conspiracy context, leave determinations of likely anticompetitive effects, procompetitive justifications, and ultimate liability up to factfinders charged with highly detailed, case-specific determinations. Although no factfinder is infallible, this requirement for highly fact-bound analysis helps to ensure that each case’s outcome has a high likelihood of preserving or increasing consumer welfare.
Legislative rulemaking would replace this quintessential fact-based process with one-size-fits-all bright-line rules. Competition rules would function like per se prohibitions, but based on notice-and-comment procedures, rather than the broad and longstanding legal and economic consensus usually required for per se condemnation under the Sherman Act. Past experience with similar regulatory regimes should give reason for pause here: the Interstate Commerce Commission, for example, failed to efficiently regulate the railroad industry before being abolished with bipartisan consensus in 1996, costing consumers, by some estimates, as much as several billion (in today’s) dollars annually in lost competitive benefits. As FTC Commissioner Christine Wilson observes, regulatory rules “frequently stifle innovation, raise prices, and lower output and quality without producing concomitant health, safety, and other benefits for consumers.” By sacrificing the precision of case-by-case adjudication, rulemaking advocates are also losing one of the best tools we have to account for “market dynamics, new sources of competition, and consumer preferences.”
Potential for Institutional Conflict with DOJ
In addition to these substantive concerns, UMC rulemaking by the FTC would also create institutional conflicts between the FTC and DOJ and lead to divergence between the legal standards applicable to the FTC Act, on the one hand, and the Sherman and Clayton acts, on the other. At present, courts have interpreted the FTC Act to be generally coextensive with the prohibitions on unlawful mergers and anticompetitive conduct under the Sherman and Clayton acts, with the limited exception of invitations to collude. But because the FTC alone has the authority to enforce the FTC Act, and rulemaking by the FTC would be limited to interpretations of that act (and could not directly affect or repeal caselaw interpreting the Sherman and Clayton acts), it would create two separate standards of liability. Given that the FTC and DOJ historically have divided enforcement between the agencies based on the industry at issue, this could result in different rules of conduct, depending on the industry involved. Types of conduct that have the potential for anticompetitive effects under certain circumstances but generally pass a rule-of-reason analysis could nonetheless be banned outright if the industry is subject to FTC oversight. Dissonance between the two federal enforcement agencies would be even more difficult for companies not falling firmly within either agency’s purview; those entities would lack certainty as to which guidelines to follow: rule-of-reason precedent or FTC rules.
Conclusion
Following its rebuke at the Supreme Court in the AMG Capital Management case, now is the time for the FTC to focus on its core, case-by-case administrative mission, taking full advantage of its unique adjudicative expertise. Broad unfair methods of competition rulemaking, however, would be an aggressive step in the wrong direction—away from FTC’s core mission and toward a no-man’s-land far afield from the FTC’s governing statutes.
[This post wraps the initial run of Truth on the Market‘s digital symposium “FTC Rulemaking on Unfair Methods of Competition.”You can find other posts at thesymposium page here. Truth on the Market also invites academics, practitioners, and other antitrust/regulation commentators to send us 1,500-4,000 word responses for potential inclusion in the symposium.]
Over the past three weeks, we have shared contributions from more than a dozen antitrust commentators—including academics, practitioners, students, and a commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission—discussing the potential for the FTC to develop substantive rules using its unfair methods of competition (UMC) authority. This post offers a recap of where we have been so far in this discussion and also discusses what comes next for this symposium and our coverage of these issues.
First, I must express a deep thank you to all who have contributed. Having helped to solicit, review, and edit many of these pieces, it has been a pleasure to engage with and learn from our authors. And second, I am happy to say to everyone: stay tuned! The big news this week is that, after a long wait, Alvaro Bedoya has been confirmed to the commission, likely creating a majority who will support Chair Lina Khan’s agenda. The ideas that we have been discussing as possibilities are likely to be translated into action over the coming weeks and months—and we will be here to continue sharing expert commentary and analysis.
The Symposium Goes On: An Open Call for Contributions
We will continue to run this symposium for the foreseeable future. We will not have daily posts, but we will have regular content: a weekly recap of relevant news, summaries of important FTC activity and new articles and scholarship, and other original content.
In addition, in the spirit of the symposium, we have an open call for contributions: if you would like to submit a piece for publication, please e-mail it to me or Keith Fierro. Submissions should be 1,500-4,000 words and may approach these issues from any perspective. They should be your original work, but may include short-form summaries of longer works published elsewhere, or expanded treatments of shorter publications (e.g., op-eds).
The Symposium So Far
We have covered a lot of ground these past three weeks. Contributors to the symposium have delved deeply into substantive areas where the FTC might try to use its UMC authority; they have engaged with one another over the scope and limits of the FTC’s authority; and they have looked at the FTC’s history, both ancient and recent, to better understand what the FTC may try to do, where it may be successful, and where it may run into a judicial wall.
Over 50,000 words of posts cannot be summarized in a few paragraphs, so I will not try to provide such a summary. The list of contributions to the symposium to date is below and each contribution is worth reading both on its own and in conjunction with others. Instead, I will pull out some themes that have come up across these posts:
Scope of FTC Authority
Unsurprisingly, several authors engaged with the potential scope of FTC UMC-rulemaking authority, with much of the discussion focused on whether the courts are likely to continue to abide the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit’s 1973 Petroleum Refiners opinion. It is fair to say that “opinions varied.” Discussion included everything from modern trends of judicial interpretation and how they differ from those used in 1973, to close readings of the Magnuson-Moss legislation (adopted in the immediate wake of the Petroleum Refiners opinion), and consideration of how more recent cases such as AMG and the D.C. Circuit’s American Library Association case affect our thinking about Petroleum Refiners.
Likely Judicial Responses
Several contributors also considered how the courts might respond to FTC rulemaking, allowing that the commission may have some level of substantive-rulemaking authority. Several authors invoked the Court’s recent “major questions” jurisprudence. Dick Pierce captures the general sentiment that any broad UMC rulemaking “would be a perfect candidate for application of the major questions doctrine.” But as with any discussion of the “major” questions doctrine, the implicit question is when a question is “major.” There seems to be some comfort with the idea that the FTC can do some rulemaking, assuming that the courts find that it has substantive-rulemaking authority under Section 6(g), but that the Commission faces an uncertain path if it tries to use that authority for more than incremental changes to antitrust law.
Virtues and Vices of Rulemaking
A couple of contributors picked up on themes of the virtues and vices of developing legal norms through rulemaking, as opposed to case-by-case adjudication. Aaron Neilson, for instance, argues that the FTC likely most needs to use rules to make bigger changes to antitrust law than are possible through adjudication, but that such big changes are the ones most likely to face resistance from the courts. And FTC Commissioner Noah Phillips looks at the Court’s move away from per se rules in antitrust cases over the past 50 years, arguing that the same logic that has pushed the courts to embrace a case-by-case approach to antitrust law is likely to create judicial resistance to any effort by the FTC to tack an opposite course.
The Substance of Substantive Rules
Several contributors addressed specific substantive issues that the FTC may seek to address with rules. In some cases, these issues formed the heart of the post; in others, they were used as examples along the way. For instance, Josh Sarnoff evaluated whether the FTC should develop rules around aftermarket parts and to address right-to-repair concerns. Dick Pierce also looked at that issue, along with several others (potential rules to address reverse-payment settlements in the pharmaceutical industry, below-cost pricing, and non-compete clauses involving low-wage workers).
Gaining Perspective
And last, but far from least, several contributors asked questions that help to put any thinking about the FTC into perspective. Jonathan Barnett, for instance, looks at the changes the FTC has made over the past year to its public statements of mission and priorities, alongside its potential rulemaking activity, to discuss the commission’s changing thinking about free markets. Ramsi Woodcock juxtaposes the FTC, the statutory framing of its regulatory authority, with the FOMC and its statutory power to directly affect the value of the dollar. And Bill MacLeod takes us back to 1935 and the National Industrial Recovery Act, reflecting on how the history of rules of “fair competition” might inform our thinking about the FTC’s authority today.
That’s a lot of ground to have covered in three weeks. Of course, the FTC will keep moving, and the ground will keep shifting. We look forward to your continued engagement with Truth on the Market and the authors who have contributed to this discussion.
[The tenth entry in our FTC UMC Rulemaking symposium comes from guest contributor Kacyn H. Fujii, a 2022 J.D. Candidate at the University of Michigan Law School. Kacyn’s entry comes via Truth on the Market‘s “New Voices” competition, open to untenured or aspiring academics (including students and fellows). You can find other posts at thesymposium page here. Truth on the Market also invites academics, practitioners, and other antitrust/regulation commentators to send us 1,500-4,000 word responses for potential inclusion in the symposium.]
On July 9, 2021, President Joe Biden issued an executive order asking the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to “curtail the unfair use of noncompete clauses and other clauses or agreements that may unfairly limit worker mobility.” This executive order raises two questions. First, does the FTC have the authority to issue such a rule? And second, is FTC rulemaking a better solution than adjudication to solve the widespread use of noncompetes? This post contends that the FTC possesses rulemaking authority and that FTC rulemaking is a better solution than adjudication for the problem of noncompete use, especially for low-wage workers.
FTC’s Rulemaking Authority
In 1973, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in National Petroleum Refiners Association v. FTC held that the Federal Trade Commission Act permitted the FTC to promulgate rules under its unfair methods of competition (UMC) authority. Specifically, it interpreted Section 6(g), which gives the FTC the authority “to make rules and regulations for the purpose of carrying out the provisions in this subchapter,” to allow rulemaking to carry out the FTC’s Section 5 authority. In his remarks at the 2020 FTC workshop on noncompetes, Richard Pierce of George Washington University School of Law argued that no court today would follow National Petroleum’s reasoning, even going so far as to call its logic “preposterous.” BYU Law’s Aaron Nielson agreed that some of National Petroleum’s reasoning was outdated but conceded that its judgment might have been correct. Meanwhile, FTC Chair Lina Khan and former FTC Commissioner Rohit Chopra have spoken in favor of the FTC’s competition-rulemaking authority, both from a legal and policy perspective.
National Petroleum’s focus on text is consistent with the approaches that courts today take. The court first addressed appellees’ argument that the FTC may carry out Section 5 only through adjudication, because adjudication was the only form of implementation explicitly mentioned in Section 5. The D.C. Circuit noted that, although Section 5(b) granted the FTC adjudicative authority, nothing in the text limited the FTC only to adjudication as a means to implement Section 5’s substantive protections. It dismissed the appellee’s argument that expressio unius meant that adjudication was the only mechanism the agency had available to implement Section 5. The D.C. Circuit also rejected the district court’s interpretation of the legislative history, because it was too ambiguous to find Congress’s “specific intent.” Similar to the approach courts take today, National Petroleum gave the text primacy over legislative history, putting significant weight on the fact that the language of Sections 5 and 6(g) is broad.
It is true that, as Nielson notes, courts today would not so readily dismiss employing canons like expressio unius. But courts today would not necessarily employ expressio unius either. The language of Section 6(g) authorizing FTC use of rulemaking is clear and broad, expressly including Section 5 among the sections the FTC may implement through rulemaking, so Congress may have not thought it necessary to explicitly mention rulemaking in Section 5. Given how clear the language is, it also does not seem so farfetched that a court today would decide to not apply the expressio unius canon to imply an exception to the language. As the Court has commented in rejecting the expressio unius canon’s implications, “the force of any negative implication [from this canon] depends on context,” and can be negated by indications that an enactment was “not meant to signal any exclusion.”
Others argue that National Petroleum’s interpretation of Sections 5 and 6(g) would not hold up in light of newer interpretive moves deployed by courts. For example, former FTC Commissioner Maureen Ohlhausen and former Assistant Attorney General James Rill contend that the FTC should not have broad competition-rulemaking authority because of the “elephants-in-mouseholes” doctrine articulated in Whitman v. American Trucking. They invoke AMG Capital Management v. FTC as evidence that the Court is wary about “allow[ing] a small statutory tail to wag a very large dog.” The Court in AMG considered whether Section 13(b) of the FTC Act, which expressly authorized the FTC to seek injunctive relief from the federal courts, also permitted the agency to seek monetary damages. The Court concluded that the FTC could not seek monetary damages from courts. Permitting this would allow the FTC to bypass its administrative process altogether, thus contravening Congress’ goals by failing to “produce[] a coherent enforcement scheme.” However, Sections 5 and 6(g) are distinguishable from the statutory provision at issue in AMG. Unlike Section 13(b), which did not explicitly grant the FTC authority to seek monetary damages, Section 6(g) does explicitly give the FTC rulemaking authority to carry out the other provisions of the Act with no limitations on this broad language. Meanwhile, there is no “coherent enforcement scheme” that would be served by limiting Section 6 only to methods to carry out Section 5’s adjudicative authority. Rulemaking authority does not detract from the FTC’s ability to adjudicate.
One could also argue that, according to the “specific over the general” canon, adjudication should be the FTC’s primary implementation method: Section 5(b), which is very specific in its description of the FTC’s adjudicative authority, should govern over Section 6(g), which discusses rulemaking only in general language. But there is no inherent conflict between the general and specific provisions here. Even if adjudication was intended as the primary implementation method, Section 5 does not explicitly preclude rulemaking as an option in its text. There may be valid functional reasons that Congress would want an agency that acts primarily through adjudication to also have substantive rulemaking authority. National Petroleum itself observed that “the evolution of bright-line rules [through adjudication] is often a slow process” and that “legislative-type” rulemaking procedures allow the agency to consider “broad range of data and argument from all those potentially affected.” In addition, as Emily Bremer of Notre Dame Law School observes, Congress consistently sets more specific guidelines for adjudication to meet individual agency and program needs, resulting in “extraordinary procedural diversity” across adjudication regimes. The greater level of specificity with respect to adjudication in Section 5(b) of the FTC Act may simply reflect Congress’ perceived need to delineate adjudication regimes in further detail than it does for rulemaking.
In addition, some who are doubtful about the FTC’s rulemaking authority have cited legislative context. Specifically, Ohlhausen and Rill argue that the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act demonstrates Congress’ concern with the FTC having expansive rulemaking power. Thus, broad competition-rulemaking authority would be inconsistent with the approach Congress took in Magnuson-Moss. However, the passage of Magnuson-Moss also implies that Congress thought the FTC had existing rulemaking power that Congress could limit—thus validating National Petroleum’s overall holding that the FTC did have rulemaking authority. In addition, Congress could have also extended Magnuson-Moss’s limits on rulemakings to competition-rulemaking authority but decided to apply it only to the FTC’s consumer-protection authority. This interpretation is supported by the text as well. The Magnuson-Moss provision expressly states that its changes “shall not affect any authority of the Commission to prescribe rules (including interpretive rules), and general statements of policy, with respect to unfair methods of competition in or affecting commerce.” Congress specifically exempted competition rulemaking from Magnuson-Moss’s additional procedural requirements. If anything, this demonstrates that Congress did not want to interfere with the FTC’s competition authority.
The history of the FTC Act also supports that Congress would not have wanted to create an expert agency limited only to adjudicative authority. The FTC Act was passed during a time of unprecedented business growth, in spite of the passage of the Sherman Act in 1890. More specifically, Congress enacted the FTC Act in response to Standard Oil. Standard Oil established rule-of-reason analysis that some decried as a judicial “power grab.” Even though members of Congress disagreed about the proper scope of the FTC’s authority, all of the proposed plans for the FTC reflected Congress’ deep objections to the existing common law approach to antitrust enforcement. Congress was concerned that the existing approach was “yielding a body of law that was inconsistent, unpredictable, and unmoored from congressional intent.” Its solution was to create the FTC. The legislative context supports interpreting the statute to give the FTC all of the tools—including rulemaking—to respond effectively to nascent antitrust threats.
Finally, the FTC’s historical reliance on adjudication does not mean that it lacks the authority to promulgate rules. Assuming the relevance of historical practice—an assumption AMG cast doubt upon when it spurned the FTC’s longstanding interpretation of the FTC Act—there are reasons that an agency may choose adjudication over rulemaking that have nothing to do with its views of its statutory authority. The FTC’s preference for adjudication may simply have reflected the policy-focused views of its leadership. For example, James Miller, who chaired the FTC from 1981 to 1985, had “fundamental objections to marketplace regulation through rulemaking” because he thought Congress would exert too much pressure on rulemaking efforts. He attempted to thwart ongoing rulemaking efforts and instead vowed to take an “aggressive” approach to enforcement through adjudication. But this does not mean he thought the FTC lacked the authority to promulgate rules at all. Over the past several decades, the courts and federal antitrust enforcers have taken a non-interventionist or laissez-faire approach to enforcement. The FTC’s history of not relying on rulemaking may simply be indicators of the agency’s policy preferences and not its views of its authority.
In short, National Petroleum’s interpretive moves are sound and its conclusion that the FTC possesses UMC-rulemaking authority should stand the test of time.
Benefits of FTC Rulemaking for Curbing Non-Compete Use
President Biden’s executive order also raised the question of whether FTC rulemaking is the right tool to address the problem of liberal noncompete use. This post argues that FTC rulemaking would have tangible benefits over adjudication, especially for noncompetes that bind low-wage workers.
The Problem with Noncompetes
Noncompete clauses, which restrict where an employee may work after they leave their employer, have been used widely even in contexts divorced from the justifications for noncompetes. Typical justifications for noncompetes include protecting trade secrets and goodwill, increasing employers’ incentives to invest in training, and improving employers’ leverage in negotiations with employees. Despite these justifications, noncompetes are used for workers who have no access to trade secrets or customer lists. According to a survey conducted in 2014, 13.3% of workers that made $40,000 per-year or less were subject to a noncompete, and 33% of those workers reported being subject to a noncompete at some point in the past. Noncompete use reduces worker mobility, even for those workers not themselves bound by noncompetes. It also results in lower wages for those bound by noncompetes. Interestingly, these effects on worker mobility and wages are present even in states where noncompetes are unenforceable.
Although noncompetes are typically governed on the state level, the magnitude of noncompete use could pose an antitrust problem. Noncompetes help employers maintain “high levels of market concentration,” which “reduce[s] competition rather than spur[ring] innovation.” However, it can be very difficult for private parties and state enforcers to challenge noncompete use under antitrust law. One employer’s use of noncompetes is unlikely to have an appreciable difference on the labor market. The harm to labor markets is only detectable in aggregate, making it virtually impossible to succeed on an antitrust challenge against an employer’s use of noncompetes. Indeed, University of Chicago Law’s Eric Posner has observed that, as of 2020, there were “a grand total of zero cases in which an employee noncompete was successfully challenged under the antitrust laws.” According to Posner, courts either claim that noncompetes involve “de minimis” effects on competition or do not create “public” injuries for antitrust law to address.
And while there have been a handful of settlements between state attorneys general and companies that use noncompetes—like the settlement between then-New York Attorney General Barbara D. Underwood and WeWork in 2018—these settlements capture only the most egregious uses of noncompetes. There are likely many other companies who use noncompetes in anticompetitive ways, but they do not operate at such scale as to warrant an investigation. State attorneys general have resource constraints that limit them to challenge only the most harmful restraints on workers. Even if these cases went to trial, instead of settling, their precedential effect would thus set only the upper bound for what is an anticompetitive use of noncompete agreements.
Further, the FTC’s current approach of relying on adjudication is unlikely to be effective in curbing widespread noncompete use. Scholars have critiqued the FTC’s historical reliance on adjudication, saying that it has failed to generate “any meaningful guidance as to what constitutes an unfair method of competition.” Part of this is because antitrust law largely relies on rule-of-reason analysis, which involves a “broad and open-ended inquiry” into the competitive effects of particular conduct. Given the highly fact-specific nature of rule-of-reason analysis, the holding of one case can be difficult to extend to another and thus leads to problems in administrability and efficiency. Even judges “have criticized antitrust standards for being highly difficult to administer.” Reliance on the rule of reason also leads to a lack of predictability, which means that market participants and the public have less notice about what the law is.
In addition, private parties cannot litigate UMC claims under Section 5 of the FTC Act; the agency itself must determine what counts as an unfair method of competition. Perhaps because of resource constraints, the FTC has only brought a “modest number” of cases that “provide an insufficient basis from which to attempt to generate substantive rules defining the Commission’s Section 5 authority.”
Benefits of Rulemaking
FTC rulemaking under its UMC authority would avoid many of the problems of a case-by-case approach. First, rulemaking would provide clarity and efficiency. For example, a rule could declare it illegal for employers to use noncompetes for employees making under the median national income. Such a rule clearly articulates the FTC’s policy and is easy to apply. This demonstrates how rulemaking can be more efficient than adjudication. In order to implement a similar policy through adjudication, the FTC may have to bring many cases covering various industries and defendants that employ low-wage workers, given the nature of rule-of-reason analysis.
Rulemaking is also more participatory than adjudication. Interested parties and the general public can weigh in on proposed rules through the notice-and-comment process. Adjudication involves only those who are party to the suit, leaving “broad swaths of market participants watching from the sidelines, lacking an opportunity to contribute their perspective, their analysis, or their expertise, except through one-off amicus briefs.” However, low-wage workers are unlikely to have the resources required to prepare and submit an amicus brief and may not even be aware of the litigation in the first place. In contrast, it is much easier for low-wage workers or their future employers to participate in the notice-and-comment process, which only requires submitting a comment through an online form. Unions or employee-rights organizations can help to facilitate worker participating in rulemaking as well.
A uniform approach through rulemaking means that more workers will be on notice of the FTC’s policy. Worker education is an important factor in solving the problem. Even in states where noncompetes are not enforceable, employers still use and threaten to enforce noncompetes, which reduces worker mobility. A clear policy articulated by the FTC may help workers to understand their rights, perhaps because a national rule will get more media attention than individual adjudications.
Although it may be true that rulemaking is, in general, less adaptable than adjudication, there may be a category of cases where our understanding is unlikely to change over time. For example, agreements to fix prices are so clearly anticompetitive that they are per se illegal under the antitrust laws. Our understanding of the anticompetitive nature of price fixing is highly unlikely to change over time.
Noncompetes for low-wage workers should be in this category of cases. This use of noncompetes is divorced from traditional justifications for noncompetes. The nature of the work for low-wage workers—say, for janitors or cashiers—is unlikely to ever require significant employer resources for training or disclosure of customer lists or trade secrets. Given the negative effects that noncompetes can have on mobility and wages, even in states where they are not enforceable, they clearly do more harm than good to the labor market. It is difficult to imagine that market conditions or economic understanding would change this.
Further, even though rulemaking can take time, the FTC’s adjudicative process is not necessarily much better. In 2015, adjudications through the FTC’s administrative process typically took two years. Former FTC Commissioner Philip Elman once observed that case-by-case adjudication “may simply be too slow and cumbersome to produce specific and clear standards adequate to the needs of businessmen, the private bar, and the government agencies.” Even if rulemaking takes longer, it may still be more efficient because of a rule’s ability to apply across the board to different industries and types of workers. It may also be more efficient because it is better able to capture all of the relevant considerations through the notice-and-comment process.
It is true that some states already have a bright-line rule against noncompetes by making noncompetes unenforceable. Even so, there is value in establishing a bright-line rule through rulemaking at a federal level: this provides greater uniformity across states. In addition, rulemaking could have some value if it is used to establish notice requirements—for example, the FTC could promulgate a rule requiring employers to notify employees of the relevant noncompete laws. Notice requirements are one example where case-by-case adjudication would be especially ineffective.
Conclusion
In certain contexts, rulemaking is a better alternative to adjudication. Noncompete use for low-wage workers is one such example. Rulemaking provides more uniformity, notice, and opportunity to participate for low-wage workers than adjudication does. And given that both state noncompete law and federal antitrust law require such fact-specific inquiries, rulemaking is also more efficient than adjudication. Thus, the FTC should use its competition-rulemaking authority to ban noncompete use for low-wage workers instead of relying only on adjudication.
[This guest post from Corbin K. Barthold of TechFreedom —the fourth post in our FTC UMC Rulemaking symposium—is adapted from his and Berin Szoka’s chapter “The Constitutional Revolution That Wasn’t: Why the FTC Isn’t a Second National Legislature,” in the forthcoming book FTC’s Rulemaking Authority, which will be published by Concurrences later this year.It is the second of two contributions to the symposium posted today, along with this related post from Yale Law Schoolstudent Leah Samuel. You can find other posts at the symposium page here. Truth on the Market also invites academics, practitioners, and other antitrust/regulation commentators to send us 1,500-4,000 word responses for potential inclusion in the symposium.]
In 1972, a case came before Aubrey E. Robinson, Jr., a judge on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, involving the scope of the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) regulatory authority. Section 5(a)(1) of the Federal Trade Commission Act outlaws “unfair methods of competition.” Section 6(g) says that the FTC may “make rules and regulations for the purposes of carrying out” the FTC Act.
What is a “rule or regulation” that helps “carry out” a statute? Does Section 6(g) simply permit the FTC to make “procedural” or “housekeeping” rules that set forth how the agency will conduct itself? Or does it instead empower the FTC to make “substantive” or “legislative” rules—precepts, binding on the public, that flesh out which methods of competition are “unfair”? This was the question before Judge Robinson.
Robinson kept his eye squarely on the FTC Act’s text and structure. What stood out to him, when he examined the statute, is the glaring structural distinction between Section 5 and Section 6. Section 5 enables the agency to file complaints, hold hearings, make findings of fact, and issue cease-and-desist orders. Section 6 permits the agency to gather and publish information about corporate practices. Each section is closely concerned with its assigned topic: Section 5 explains, in detail, how the FTC shall exercise quasi-judicial powers; Section 6 explains, in detail, how the FTC shall exercise investigative powers. The two sections have little to say to each other. This, concluded Robinson, was a strong signal that Section 6(g) does not leap its fence, progress to Section 5(a)(1), and enable the creation of rules that define “unfair methods of competition.”
That was just the beginning. Why would Congress pair a vague and open-ended rulemaking power with an elaborate and strictly circumscribed quasi-judicial power? If the FTC could make whole categories of conduct unlawful by diktat, why would it endure the rigmarole of Section 5 adjudication? More to the point, why would Congress bother to spell out that process, knowing that the FTC would go around it? In full, moreover, Section 6(g) gives the FTC the power “[f]rom time to time to classify corporations and to make rules and regulations for the purposes of carrying out the provisions of [the Act].” What is the part about “classify[ing]” companies doing there? Read as a whole, Section 6(g) seems merely to equip the FTC to conduct investigations, including, as Robinson put it, by ensuring that the agency has “the power to require reports from all corporations.”
Nor did the clues end there. Other statutes expressly grant the FTC the power to issue discrete consumer-protection rules, such as rules governing the labels of wool products. Congress knew how to grant legislative rulemaking power when it wanted to do so. And the limited grants of such power, in the other statutes, would be superfluous if the FTC already possessed a general “unfair methods” rulemaking authority in Section 6(g).
(Although Robinson did not mention it, a further sign of Section 6(g)’s narrow scope is the absence of statutory penalties for violating an FTC-issued rule. In the era when the FTC Act was passed, Congress never granted the power to make substantive rules without also specifying the price of noncompliance.)
In short, the FTC Act’s text and structure show that Section 6(g) has no intention of helping Section 5(a)(1). And when he checked his work against the FTC Act’s legislative history, Robinson found out why that is so. Section 6(g), he discovered, was originally in a House bill “that conferred only investigative powers on the Commission.” A competing bill in the Senate, meanwhile, contained quasi-judicial powers and the “unfair methods” standard but “made no provision whatever for the promulgation of rules and regulations in any context.” The investigations-only House bill and the no-rulemaking-power Senate bill were eventually stitched together. No wonder Section 6(g) does not seem to support the creation of legislative rules about the meaning of Section 5(a)(1); the two provisions were born into different bills.
If more support were needed, added Robinson, the FTC’s conduct would provide it. It had taken the FTC 50 years to “notice” a vast store of authority hiding in Section 6(g)—yet another revealing indication, Robinson wrote, “that the FTC knew it was not originally granted this rulemaking authority.” Over the years, the agency had even “repeatedly admitted that it has no power to promulgate substantive rules of law.”
Life is not fair. Judge Robinson’s well-crafted order is not good law. It was reversed. And in its place stands an appellate opinion that is longer, more repetitive, less rigorous, less disciplined, and altogether less convincing than the decision it overturns.
“Our duty,” J. Skelly Wright, a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, pronounced in his 1973 opinion in National Petroleum Refiners v. FTC (D.C. Cir.), “is not simply to make a policy judgment.” The FTC, after all, “is a creation of Congress, not a creation of judges’ contemporary notions of what is wise policy.” He might then have said: We therefore adopt the careful opinion of Judge Robinson as our own—affirmed.
He did not say that. In opening with a pious renunciation of judicial policymaking, in fact, he protested too much.
Wright’s treatment of the FTC Act’s text is brusque and general. Construing Section 6(g) to allow substantive rulemaking, Wright submitted, would “not in any formal sense circumvent” the quasi-judicial enforcement mechanism of Section 5. Congress, he went on, had not explicitly told the FTC it could only proceed case-by-case. He then discussed a pair of Supreme Court cases that, though concededly not on point, suggest the FTC Act should be read “broad[ly]” and as a “whole.” And he recited Section 6(g) itself, as though its support for his position were self-evident.
This casual nod to text complete, Wright moved on to his true preoccupation—policy considerations. Over and over, he praised the “invaluable resource-saving flexibility” of rulemaking. According to Wright:
“[U]se of substantive rule-making is increasingly felt to yield significant benefits. … Increasingly, courts are recognizing that use of rule-making to make innovations in agency policy may actually be fairer to regulated parties than total reliance on case-by-case adjudication.”
“[C]ontemporary considerations of practicality and fairness … certainly support the Commission’s position here.”
“Such benefits are especially obvious in cases involving the initiation of rules of the sort the FTC has promulgated here.”
“[T]he policy innovation involved in this case underscores the need for increased reliance on rule-making rather than adjudication alone.”
“[The FTC] has remained hobbled in its task by the delay inherent in repetitious, lengthy litigation[.] … To the extent substantive rule-making … is likely to deal with these problems … [it] should be upheld as [allowed under the FTC Act].”
“[T]he Commission will be able to proceed more expeditiously, … and … more efficiently with a mixed system of rule-making and adjudication[.]”
“[C]ourts have stressed the advantages of efficiency and expedition which inhere in reliance on rule-making instead of adjudication alone.”
So much for eschewing “judges’ contemporary notions of what is wise policy”! Rulemaking was the wave of the future, as all fashionable and enlightened judges understood. Wright seemed to believe, therefore, that he should insert into the FTC Act the power to make substantive rules. Whether the helpless text could bear such a reading was a secondary concern at best.
When not providing his personal endorsement of the benefits of rulemaking, Wright repeatedly invoked the FTC Act’s “purpose”:
“[R]ejecting the claim of rule-making power would run counter to the broad policies … that clearly motivated Congress in 1914.”
“[T]he broad, undisputed policies which clearly motivated the framers of the [FTC] Act of 1914 would indeed be furthered by our view[.]”
“[R]ule-making is not only consistent with the original framers’ broad purposes, but appears to be a particularly apt means of carrying them out.”
The FTC needs rulemaking power “to do the job assigned by Congress.”
But a judge may not appeal to a statute’s “purpose” on the false cry that he is divining what the legislators “really” meant. The Supreme Court in more recent years has explained that “no legislation pursues its purposes at all costs,” and that “it frustrates rather than effectuates legislative intent simplistically to assume that whatever furthers the statute’s primary objective must be the law.”The missing ingredient in Wright’s long document—what should have been the main ingredient—is obedience to the statutory text and structure.
Wright’s opinion in National Petroleum Refiners (D.C. Cir.) is a museum piece. It is a fossilized remnant of an extinct species of statutory interpretation. For a court trying to understand the FTC Act today, it is next to useless. Judges may not let their rulings be driven by their sense of “policy,” by their intuitions about statutory “purpose,” or by their desire for a personally satisfying result. The Supreme Court has shut the door on these factors. The judiciary possesses “no roving license,” it has said, to rewrite a statute on the assumption that “Congress ‘must have intended’ something broader.” Judges are “expounders of what the law is,” not “policymakers choosing what the law should be.”
[This guest post from Lawrence J. Spiwak of the Phoenix Center for Advanced Legal & Economic Public Policy Studiesis the second in our FTC UMC Rulemaking symposium. You can find other posts at the symposium page here. Truth on the Market also invites academics, practitioners, and other antitrust/regulation commentators to send us 1,500-4,000 word responses for potential inclusion in the symposium.]
While antitrust and regulation are supposed to be different sides of the same coin, there has always been a healthy debate over which enforcement paradigm is the most efficient. For those who have long suffered under the zealous hand of ex ante regulation, they would gladly prefer to be overseen by the more dispassionate and case-specific oversight of antitrust. Conversely, those dissatisfied with the current state of antitrust enforcement have increased calls to abandon the ex post approach of antitrust and return to some form of active, “always on” regulation.
While the “antitrust versus regulation” debate has raged for some time, the election of President Joe Biden has brought a new wrinkle: Lina Khan, the controversial chair of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), has made it very clear that she would like to expand the commission’s role from that of a mere enforcer of the nation’s antitrust laws to that of an agency that also promulgates ex ante “bright line” rules. Thus, the “antitrust versus regulation” debate is no longer academic.
Khan’s efforts to convert the FTC into a de facto regulator should surprise no one, however. Even before she was nominated, Khan was quite vocal about her policy vision for the FTC. For example, in 2020, she co-authored an essay with her former boss (and later briefly her FTC colleague) Rohit Chopra in the University of Chicago Law Review titled “The Case for ‘Unfair Methods of Competition’ Rulemaking.” In it, Khan and Chopra lay out both legal and policy arguments to support “unfair methods of competition” (UMC) rulemaking. But as I explain in a law review published last year in the Federalist Society Review titled “A Change in Direction for the Federal Trade Commission?”, Khan and Chopra’s arguments simply do not hold up to scrutiny. While I encourage those interested in the bounds of the FTC’s UMC rulemaking authority to read my paper in full, for purposes of this symposium, I include a brief summary of my analysis below.
Khan’s Legal Arguments for a UMC Rulemaking
At the outset of their essay, Chopra and Khan lay out what they believe to be the shortcomings of modern antitrust enforcement. As they correctly note, “[a]ntitrust law today is developed exclusively through adjudication,” which is designed to “facilitate[] nuanced and fact-specific analysis of liability and well-tailored remedies.” However, the authors contend that, while a case-by-case approach may sound great in theory, “in practice, the reliance on case-by-case adjudication yields a system of enforcement that generates ambiguity, unduly drains resources from enforcers, and deprives individuals and firms of any real opportunity to democratically participate in the process.” Chopra and Khan blame this alleged policy failure on the abandonment of per se rules in favor of the use of the “rule-of-reason” approach in antitrust jurisprudence. In their view, a rule-of-reason approach is nothing more than “a broad and open-ended inquiry into the overall competitive effects of particular conduct [which] asks judges to weigh the circumstances to decide whether the practice at issue violates the antitrust laws.” To remedy this perceived analytical shortcoming, they argue that the commission should step into the breach and promulgate ex ante bright-line rules to better enforce the prohibition against “unfair methods of competition” (UMC) outlined in Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act.
As a threshold matter, while courts have traditionally provided guidance as to what exactly constitutes “unfair methods of competition,” Chopra and Khan argue that it should be the FTC that has that responsibility in the first instance. According to Chopra and Khan, because Congress set up the FTC as the independent expert agency to implement the FTC Act and because the phrase “unfair methods of competition” is ambiguous, courts must accord great deference to “FTC interpretations of ‘unfair methods of competition’” under the Supreme Court’s Chevron doctrine.
The authors then argue that the FTC has statutory authority to promulgate substantive rules to enforce the FTC’s interpretation of UMC. In particular, they point to the broad catch-all provision in Section 6(g) of the FTC Act. Section 6(g) provides, in relevant part, that the FTC may “[f]rom time to time . . . make rules and regulations for the purpose of carrying out the provisions of this subchapter.” Although this catch-all rulemaking provision is far from the detailed statutory scheme Congress set forth in the Magnuson-Moss Act to govern rulemaking to deal with Section 5’s other prohibition against “unfair or deceptive acts and practices” (UDAP), Chopra and Khan argue that the D.C. Circuit’s 1973 ruling in National Petroleum Refiners Association v. FTC—a case that predates the Magnuson-Moss Act—provides judicial affirmation that the FTC has the authority to “promulgate substantive rules, not just procedural rules” under Section 6(g). Stating Khan’s argument differently: although there may be no affirmative specific grant of authority for the FTC to engage in UMC rulemaking, in the absence of any limit on such authority, the FTC may engage in UMC rulemaking subject to the constraints of the Administrative Procedure Act.
As I point out in my paper, while there are certainly strong arguments that the FTC lacks UMC rulemaking authority (see, e.g., Ohlhausen & Rill, “Pushing the Limits? A Primer on FTC Competition Rulemaking”), it is my opinion that, given the current state of administrative law—in particular, the high level of judicial deference accorded to agencies under both Chevron and the “arbitrary and capricious standard”—whether the FTC can engage in UMC rulemaking remains a very open question.
That said, even if we assume arguendo that the FTC does, in fact, have UMC rulemaking authority, the case law nonetheless reveals that, despite Khan’s hopes and desires, the FTC cannot unilaterally abandon the consumer welfare standard. As I explain in detail in my paper, even with great judicial deference, it is well-established that independent agencies simply cannot ignore antitrust terms of art (especially when that agency is specifically charged with enforcing the antitrust laws). Thus, Khan may get away with initiating UMC rulemaking, but, for example, attempting to impose a mandatory common carrier-style non-discrimination rule may be a bridge too far.
Khan’s Policy Arguments in Favor of UMC Rulemaking
Separate from the legal debate over whether the FTC can engage in UMC rulemaking, it is also important to ask whether the FTC should engage in UMC rulemaking. Khan essentially posits that the American economy needs a generic business regulator possessed with plenary power and expansive jurisdiction. Given the United States’ well-documented (and sordid) experience with public-utility regulation, that’s probably not a good idea.
Indeed, to Khan and Chopra, ex ante regulation is superior to ex post antitrust enforcement. For example, they submit that UMC “rulemaking would enable the Commission to issue clear rules to give market participants sufficient notice about what the law is, helping ensure that enforcement is predictable.” Moreover, they argue that “establishing rules could help relieve antitrust enforcement of steep costs and prolonged trials.” In particular, “[t]argeting conduct through rulemaking, rather than adjudication, would likely lessen the burden of expert fees or protracted litigation, potentially saving significant resources on a present-value basis.” And third, they contend that rulemaking “would enable the Commission to establish rules through a transparent and participatory process, ensuring that everyone who may be affected by a new rule has the opportunity to weigh in on it, granting the rule greater legitimacy.”
Khan’s published writings argue forcefully for greater regulatory power, but they suffer from analytical omissions that render her judgment questionable. For example, it is axiomatic that, while it is easy to imagine or theorize about the many benefits of regulation, regulation imposes significant costs of both the intended and unintended sorts. These costs can include compliance costs, reductions of innovation and investment, and outright entry deterrence that protects incumbents. Yet nowhere in her co-authored essay does Khan contemplate a cost-benefit analysis before promulgating a new regulation; she appears to assume that regulation is always costless, easy, and beneficial, on net. Unfortunately, history shows that we cannot always count on FTC commissioners to engage in wise policymaking.
Khan also fails to contemplate the possibility that changing market circumstances or inartful drafting might call for the removal of regulations previously imposed. Among other things, this failure calls into question her rationale that “clear rules” would make “enforcement … predictable.” Why, then, does the government not always use clear rules, instead of the ham-handed approach typical of regulatory interventions? More importantly, enforcement of rules requires adjudication on a case-by-case basis that is governed by precedent from prior applications of the rule and due process.
Taken together, Khan’s analytical omissions reveal a lack of historical awareness about (and apparently any personal experience with) the realities of modern public-utility regulation. Indeed, Khan offers up as an example of purported rulemaking success the Federal Communications Commission’s 2015 Open Internet Order, which imposed legacy common-carrier regulations designed for the old Ma Bell monopoly on the internet. But as I detail extensively in my paper, the history of net-neutrality regulation bears witness that Khan’s assertions that this process provided “clear rules,” was faster and cheaper, and allowed for meaningful public participation simply are not true.
There is little doubt that Federal Trade Commission (FTC) unfair methods of competition rulemaking proceedings are in the offing. Newly named FTC Chair Lina Khan and Commissioner Rohit Chopra both have extolled the benefits of competition rulemaking in a major law review article. What’s more, in May, Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter (during her stint as acting chair) established a rulemaking unit in the commission’s Office of General Counsel empowered to “explore new rulemakings to prohibit unfair or deceptive practices and unfair methods of competition” (emphasis added).
In short, a majority of sitting FTC commissioners apparently endorse competition rulemaking proceedings. As such, it is timely to ask whether FTC competition rules would promote consumer welfare, the paramount goal of competition policy.
In a recently published Mercatus Center research paper, I assess the case for competition rulemaking from a competition perspective and find it wanting. I conclude that, before proceeding, the FTC should carefully consider whether such rulemakings would be cost-beneficial. I explain that any cost-benefit appraisal should weigh both the legal risks and the potential economic policy concerns (error costs and “rule of law” harms). Based on these considerations, competition rulemaking is inappropriate. The FTC should stick with antitrust enforcement as its primary tool for strengthening the competitive process and thereby promoting consumer welfare.
A summary of my paper follows.
Legal Risks of Competition Rulemaking
Section 6(g) of the original Federal Trade Commission Act authorizes the FTC “to make rules and regulations for the purpose of carrying out the provisions of this subchapter.” Section 6(g) rules are enacted pursuant to the “informal rulemaking” requirements of Section 553 of the Administrative Procedures Act (APA), which apply to the vast majority of federal agency rulemaking proceedings.
Before launching Section 6(g) competition rulemakings, however, the FTC would be well-advised first to weigh the legal risks and policy concerns associated with such an endeavor. Rulemakings are resource-intensive proceedings and should not lightly be undertaken without an eye to their feasibility and implications for FTC enforcement policy.
Only one appeals court decision addresses the scope of Section 6(g) rulemaking. In 1971, the FTC enacted a Section 6(g) rule stating that it was both an “unfair method of competition” and an “unfair act or practice” for refiners or others who sell to gasoline retailers “to fail to disclose clearly and conspicuously in a permanent manner on the pumps the minimum octane number or numbers of the motor gasoline being dispensed.” In 1973, in the National Petroleum Refiners case, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit upheld the FTC’s authority to promulgate this and other binding substantive rules. The court rejected the argument that Section 6(g) authorized only non-substantive regulations concerning regarding the FTC’s non-adjudicatory, investigative, and informative functions, spelled out elsewhere in Section 6.
In 1975, two years after National Petroleum Refiners was decided, Congress granted the FTC specific consumer-protection rulemaking authority (authorizing enactment of trade regulation rules dealing with unfair or deceptive acts or practices) through Section 202 of the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act, which added Section 18 to the FTC Act. Magnuson-Moss rulemakings impose adjudicatory-type hearings and other specific requirements on the FTC, unlike more flexible section 6(g) APA informal rulemakings. However, the FTC can obtain civil penalties for violation of Magnuson-Moss rules, something it cannot do if 6(g) rules are violated.
In a recent set of public comments filed with the FTC, the Antitrust Section of the American Bar Association stated:
[T]he Commission’s [6(g)] rulemaking authority is buried in within an enumerated list of investigative powers, such as the power to require reports from corporations and partnerships, for example. Furthermore, the [FTC] Act fails to provide any sanctions for violating any rule adopted pursuant to Section 6(g). These two features strongly suggest that Congress did not intend to give the agency substantive rulemaking powers when it passed the Federal Trade Commission Act.
Rephrased, this argument suggests that the structure of the FTC Act indicates that the rulemaking referenced in Section 6(g) is best understood as an aid to FTC processes and investigations, not a source of substantive policymaking. Although the National Petroleum Refiners decision rejected such a reading, that ruling came at a time of significant judicial deference to federal agency activism, and may be dated.
The U.S. Supreme Court’s April 2021 decision in AMG Capital Management v. FTC further bolsters the “statutory structure” argument that Section 6(g) does not authorize substantive rulemaking. In AMG, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously held that Section 13(b) of the FTC Act, which empowers the FTC to seek a “permanent injunction” to restrain an FTC Act violation, does not authorize the FTC to seek monetary relief from wrongdoers. The court’s opinion rejected the FTC’s argument that the term “permanent injunction” had historically been understood to include monetary relief. The court explained that the injunctive language was “buried” in a lengthy provision that focuses on injunctive, not monetary relief (note that the term “rules” is similarly “buried” within 6(g) language dealing with unrelated issues). The court also pointed to the structure of the FTC Act, with detailed and specific monetary-relief provisions found in Sections 5(l) and 19, as “confirm[ing] the conclusion” that Section 13(b) does not grant monetary relief.
By analogy, a court could point to Congress’ detailed enumeration of substantive rulemaking provisions in Section 18 (a mere two years after National Petroleum Refiners) as cutting against the claim that Section 6(g) can also be invoked to support substantive rulemaking. Finally, the Supreme Court in AMG flatly rejected several relatively recent appeals court decisions that upheld Section 13(b) monetary-relief authority. It follows that the FTC cannot confidently rely on judicial precedent (stemming from one arguably dated court decision, National Petroleum Refiners) to uphold its competition rulemaking authority.
In sum, the FTC will have to overcome serious fundamental legal challenges to its section 6(g) competition rulemaking authority if it seeks to promulgate competition rules.
Even if the FTC’s 6(g) authority is upheld, it faces three other types of litigation-related risks.
First, applying the nondelegation doctrine, courts might hold that the broad term “unfair methods of competition” does not provide the FTC “an intelligible principle” to guide the FTC’s exercise of discretion in rulemaking. Such a judicial holding would mean the FTC could not issue competition rules.
Second, a reviewing court might strike down individual proposed rules as “arbitrary and capricious” if, say, the court found that the FTC rulemaking record did not sufficiently take into account potentially procompetitive manifestations of a condemned practice.
Third, even if a final competition rule passes initial legal muster, applying its terms to individual businesses charged with rule violations may prove difficult. Individual businesses may seek to structure their conduct to evade the particular strictures of a rule, and changes in commercial practices may render less common the specific acts targeted by a rule’s language.
Economic Policy Concerns Raised by Competition Rulemaking
In addition to legal risks, any cost-benefit appraisal of FTC competition rulemaking should consider the economic policy concerns raised by competition rulemaking. These fall into two broad categories.
First, competition rules would generate higher error costs than adjudications. Adjudications cabin error costs by allowing for case-specific analysis of likely competitive harms and procompetitive benefits. In contrast, competition rules inherently would be overbroad and would suffer from a very high rate of false positives. By characterizing certain practices as inherently anticompetitive without allowing for consideration of case-specific facts bearing on actual competitive effects, findings of rule violations inevitably would condemn some (perhaps many) efficient arrangements.
Second, competition rules would undermine the rule of law and thereby reduce economic welfare. FTC-only competition rules could lead to disparate legal treatment of a firm’s business practices, depending upon whether the FTC or the U.S. Justice Department was the investigating agency. Also, economic efficiency gains could be lost due to the chilling of aggressive efficiency-seeking business arrangements in those sectors subject to rules.
Conclusion
A combination of legal risks and economic policy harms strongly counsels against the FTC’s promulgation of substantive competition rules.
First, litigation issues would consume FTC resources and add to the costly delays inherent in developing competition rules in the first place. The compounding of separate serious litigation risks suggests a significant probability that costs would be incurred in support of rules that ultimately would fail to be applied.
Second, even assuming competition rules were to be upheld, their application would raise serious economic policy questions. The inherent inflexibility of rule-based norms is ill-suited to deal with dynamic evolving market conditions, compared with matter-specific antitrust litigation that flexibly applies the latest economic thinking to particular circumstances. New competition rules would also exacerbate costly policy inconsistencies stemming from the existence of dual federal antitrust enforcement agencies, the FTC and the Justice Department.
In conclusion, an evaluation of rule-related legal risks and economic policy concerns demonstrates that a reallocation of some FTC enforcement resources to the development of competition rules would not be cost-effective. Continued sole reliance on case-by-case antitrust litigation would generate greater economic welfare than a mixture of litigation and competition rules.
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