Chicago Business Litigation Lawyer Blog
We have previously written about President Biden’s Executive Order in which he encouraged the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to crack down on the “unfair use of non-compete clauses and other clauses or agreements that may unfairly limit worker mobility.” Since the issuance of that Executive Order the FTC has ramped up its efforts to curtail the use of such restrictive covenants using existing antitrust and unfair competition laws. Additionally, the FTC held a two-day workshop in December 2021, called “Making Competition Work: Promoting Competition in Labor Markets,” at which industry leaders and professionals held panel discussions on antitrust and labor issues.
However, until recently, the FTC had not issued any formal guidance outlining its strategy for accomplishing the outcome sought in the President’s Executive Order. Recently the FTC began to articulate a unified strategy to respond to the President’s challenge. Last month, we began to see the agency’s execution of that strategy.
In June, the FTC published an administrative complaint challenging an acquisition by Arko Corporation and its subsidiary GPM Investments, LLC of 60 gasoline and diesel fuel outlets located in Michigan and Ohio from the Corrigan Oil Company. As part of the sale, Corrigan agreed not to compete against Arko and GPM in the areas surrounding the 60 fuel outlets included in the sale, as well as other GPM locations encompassing in total more than 190 locations. The restrictive covenant part of the sales agreement precluded Corrigan from participating in the sale, marketing, and supply of gasoline and diesel fuel in the territory surrounding these locations.
The FTC’s complaint challenged the sale as anticompetitive because of the particulars of the non-compete provisions in the sales agreement and its anticompetitive effect on the impacted markets. As mentioned, the fuel outlets being acquired are located in Michigan and Ohio. However, the FTC has alleged that the non-compete provisions reduced (or eliminated) GPM’s competitors in market territories throughout Michigan, and lacked any “reasonable procompetitive justification” for their application to the GPM locations unrelated to the transaction. The FTC alleges that these covenants not to compete violate Section 7 of the Clayton Act and Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act. Continue reading ›