Wednesday, we covered President Trump’s firing of Democratic FTC Commissioners Alvaro Bedoya and Rebecca Slaughter and explored whether a two-member Commission constitutes a quorum for the agency to take formal action.
Now we take a look at the FTC’s first 50 days under Chair Andrew Ferguson, reflecting on key developments and early insights relating to the agency’s consumer protection agenda. So far, the FTC has issued several business blog posts, formed two new task forces, initiated information-gathering efforts, and announced three new enforcement actions. While the new Commission leadership continues to shape its priorities, early indications suggest a strong focus on combating consumer fraud and scrutinizing content censorship practices by large technology companies.
- Fraud prevention. The FTC’s new leadership has made it unequivocally clear that preventing fraud and addressing core deception remain top priorities. Since January 20, 2025, the agency has announced only three new consumer protection enforcement actions—one targeting a phantom debt collector and two others involving a business opportunity and alleged credit repair scam and an online storefront business opportunity. In all three cases, the agency secured federal court orders halting the companies’ operations during the litigation and freezing their assets – strong indicators of straightforward fraud cases. Beyond enforcement, the Bureau of Consumer Protection issued two fraud-related business blog posts in recent weeks, including one discussing its business opportunity enforcement action and another warning of scams that emerge during weather emergencies. The agency also released data highlighting a significant rise in reported consumer losses due to fraud in 2024 – a 25% increase from the previous year. The types of fraud highlighted in the FTC’s announcement include investment scams, imposter scams, job, employment, and business opportunity frauds, as well as scams that require payment with bank transfers and cryptocurrency.
- Protecting American workers. Chair Ferguson has emphasized that safeguarding American workers from deceptive, unfair, and anticompetitive labor-market practices is a top priority. In line with this commitment, the FTC recently announced the creation of a Joint Labor Task Force, dedicated to investigating and prosecuting unlawful labor practices. The task force will focus on a range of issues, including no-poach, non-solicitation, and no-hire agreements; noncompete clauses; wage-fixing arrangements; deceptive job advertising and earnings claims; misleading business opportunities and franchise offerings; and collusion or unlawful coordination on DEI employment metrics.
- Slowdown in new enforcement activity. As noted above, the Commission has announced only three new consumer protection enforcement actions in the past 50 days. (The Commission has announced multiple federal court decisions in cases filed during the prior administration, as detailed here and here, as well as the disbursement of refunds that relate to matters settled in the prior administration, as detailed here and here.) This slowdown may indicate that the Commission is taking time to review existing investigations and consent negotiations to ensure alignment with its current priorities. Additionally, there have been reports of at least one Civil Investigative Demand (“CID”) issued under the prior administration being withdrawn and one litigation (pursued by the DOJ on behalf of the FTC) being abandoned. Whether the FTC will reconsider other pending matters remains uncertain, but expectations are that Big Tech cases will continue to move forward, as noted in Chair Ferguson’s recent interview with CNBC.
- Addressing alleged Big Tech censorship. As we previously discussed here, on February 20, 2025, the FTC initiated a public inquiry to examine how technology platforms restrict or degrade user access based on speech content or affiliations and to determine if such practices are unlawful, potentially harming consumers and affecting competition. The FTC’s Request for Information (“RFI”) seeks public comments on experiences where tech platforms have banned, shadow banned, demonetized, or otherwise censored users. The information request is in line with Chair Ferguson’s stated intent to use the FTC’s authority to address digital censorship.
- Rulemaking. Despite Chair Ferguson’s criticism of agency rulemaking during the Biden era, the Commission recently filed a brief strongly defending the recently issued “Click to Cancel” Rule on multiple grounds. Specifically, the FTC argued that the Commission properly exercised its authority to issue the Rule, defined the unfair and deceptive practices with specificity, reasonably justified the Rule’s requirements and scope, and complied with all procedural requirements. As we await the Eighth Circuit’s decision, we note that the Rule’s misrepresentation provision has already gone into effect as of January 2025, with the rest of the Rule slated to go into effect May 14, 2025, unless the Eighth Circuit determines otherwise. (The case is Custom Communications, Inc. v. Federal Trade Commission, No. 24-3137 (8th Cir. Jan. 17, 2025).) Given the Rule was finalized in the prior administration, it presumably would not be covered by President Trump’s Executive Order directing agencies to “identify at least 10 existing rules, regulations, or guidance documents to be repealed” for every new rule, regulation, or guidance adopted.
The FTC’s actions in its first 50 days signal a clear focus on consumer fraud prevention, labor market protections, and scrutiny of Big Tech’s content moderation practices. In addition to the forthcoming litigation battle over the firing of the two Democratic Commissioners, the anticipated confirmation of Republican Mark Meador as the third Republican Commissioner is also expected to influence the Commission’s direction in the months ahead. We’ll be watching closely to see how these early initiatives develop over the next 50 days and beyond.
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