Posts Tagged: "Federal Trade Commisison"

In January of this year, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) proposed a new rule that would ban employers from using noncompete clauses for their employees. In an announcement, the FTC said that the use of noncompete clauses is “a widespread and often exploitative practice that suppresses wages, hampers innovation, and blocks entrepreneurs from starting new businesses.” The agency estimated the new rule could increase wages by $300 billion a year, as firms would be encouraged to do more to keep their workers. The proposed rule change was opened for public comment in January, and the deadline for submissions was extended from March 20 to April 19 in early March. As of April 18, the Regulations.gov website indicated that 24,259 comments had been received and 14,946 posted. With the comment period coming to a close this week, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has weighed in, urging April Tabor, FTC Secretary to withdraw the proposed rule.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) just can’t take “no, you’re wrong” for an answer. Despite its embarrassing reversal by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in August, the FTC has now appealed its Qualcomm case to the full Ninth Circuit. A three-judge appellate panel overturned the trial court’s errant ruling, giving the FTC a comeuppance in its antitrust suit against Qualcomm, the trailblazer in wireless technology with thousands and thousands of patented inventions. The sheer cliff the FTC seeks to climb features daunting crags. The appellate judges ruled unanimously. They also found fundamental problems in the trial court’s (and FTC’s) legal and factual analysis, and so they gave basic aspects of the case fresh eyes, or de novo, review. And several federal departments, including the Justice Department Antitrust Division, weighed in with the trial court in opposition to the FTC.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit today vacated a decision of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California finding that Qualcomm had engaged in unlawful licensing practices and reversed a permanent, worldwide injunction against several of Qualcomm’s core business practices. In May 2019, Judge Lucy Koh issued a 233-page order finding that Qualcomm had engaged in unlawful licensing practices and ordered in part that Qualcomm “must make exhaustive SEP licenses available to modem-chip suppliers on fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory (“FRAND”) terms and to submit, as necessary, to arbitral or judicial dispute resolution to determine such terms…[and] submit to compliance and monitoring procedures for a period of seven (7) years.” Koh’s ruling was widely criticized, and today’s unanimous opinion was a total reversal of her findings.