A few months ago my colleague and good friend, franchisee attorney Ronald Gardner, authored a column for the New York Law Journal seemingly cheering on the Federal Trade Commission to crack down on supposed franchisor misconduct (see “The Giant Has Awoken: Franchisors in FTC’s Crosshairs“).

I suggest that franchisee advocates stop twirling their batons and put down their pom-poms. True, it is that on March 10 the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) issued a solicitation seeking public comments on “provisions of franchise agreements and franchisor business practices.” Sadly, both the FTC’s solicitation and Gardner’s column reek of a predetermination to arrive at a desired result: a bureaucratic assault on franchisors, based strictly on anecdotal evidence and no studies whatsoever, followed by the FTC revising its FTC Franchise Rule in a fashion mutating it from a disclosure regulation to one which instead governs and restricts the way franchisors conduct their businesses and render illegal the contents of franchise agreements.

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