5 Takeaways From FTC Actions Against Professional Boards

The U.S. Supreme Court oral arguments in the North Carolina Board of Dental Examiners v. Federal Trade Commission cast the FTC’s scrutiny of competitor-controlled boards into the national spotlight. While the North Carolina Dental case has been the FTC’s most high-profile recent challenge to the rules of professional boards and associations, two recent consent decrees — one with the National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS) and another with the National Association of Residential Property Managers (NARPM) — underscore that competitor-controlled groups remain a priority for the commission. This article provides a brief description of both investigations and provides five takeaways from the FTC’s enforcement actions against competitor-controlled boards.