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Agency Reasonably Distrusts Its Own Estimates

Client Alert | less than 1 min read | 04.27.04

In Burney & Burney Constr. Co. (Mar. 19, 2004), GAO upheld an agency’s rejection of a low bid as unbalanced because some of the line items were significantly overstated and, if the agency had ordered more than the estimated quantities for those line items under this requirements contract, the agency would end up paying more under the low bid than under the next-to-low bid. GAO upheld this approach even though the agency used different estimated quantities for the unbalanced bidding analysis than it did for the price determination of the low bid, reasoning that using different estimates for different purposes was reasonable.

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Client Alert | 8 min read | 09.09.25

FTC Stops Defending Rule Banning Noncompete Agreements, Opting Instead for “Aggressive” Case-by-Case Enforcement

On September 5, 2025, the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) withdrew its appeals of decisions issued by Texas and Florida federal district courts, which enjoined the FTC from enforcing a nationwide rule banning almost all noncompete employment agreements. Companies, however, should not read this decision to mean that their noncompete agreements will no longer be subjected to antitrust scrutiny by federal enforcers. In a statement joined by Commissioner Melissa Holyoak, Chairman Andrew Ferguson stressed that the FTC “will continue to enforce the antitrust laws aggressively against noncompete agreements” and warned that “firms in industries plagued by thickets of noncompete agreements will receive [in the coming days] warning letters from me, urging them to consider abandoning those agreements as the Commission prepares investigations and enforcement actions.”...