Courts Kill Nationwide Noncompete Rule

U.S. federal courts are using major‑questions-style limits to strike down agency attempts to address market structure through broad rulemaking, not just individual enforcement actions. That judicial pushback has hollowed out an ambitious progressive antitrust strategy at the FTC and shifts the battleground to Congress, the states, and litigation tactics. — If courts keep blocking structural rulemaking, large-scale regulatory change will require legislative action or new legal theories, reshaping labor (noncompetes), merger policy, and platform regulation for years.