FTC Chairman Talks Competition, Certainty with NAM Members
Federal Trade Commission Chairman Andrew N. Ferguson spoke to NAM members at our headquarters on Monday, discussing the agency’s approach to mergers and acquisitions review, noncompete agreements and intellectual property protection, business collaboration and consumer protection standards.
The background: Chairman Ferguson was first nominated to the FTC in 2023 and was appointed chairman by President Trump in 2025. He was also recently named vice chair of the president’s new task force on AI.
- Ferguson was formerly Virginia’s solicitor general and chief counsel to then-Senate Leader Mitch McConnell.
Noncompete agreements: While the FTC has dropped the prior administration’s nationwide ban on noncompete clauses, Ferguson believes those agreements are overused. He said the agency is issuing warning letters to companies that have overly broad and unfair noncompete requirements.
- However, Ferguson said the FTC is open to exceptions for senior executives, engineers and others with competitively sensitive information where non-disclosure agreements and trade secret laws would not provide sufficient protection.
Business collaborations: Ferguson said one of his priorities is to work with the U.S. Department of Justice to update the agencies’ guidelines for business collaborations among competitors, which were withdrawn by the prior administration. He said that providing regulatory certainty would help companies vigorously compete for the benefit of consumers.
The NAM says: “Building a strong manufacturing economy requires competitive markets and fair and predictable policies that empower manufacturers to invest, innovate, collaborate and compete,” said NAM President and CEO Jay Timmons.
- “That makes the FTC’s mission—and Chairman Ferguson’s leadership—enormously consequential for manufacturers.”
