“Noncompetes are the type of restriction that Section 5 of the F.T.C. Act, a federal law passed by Congress more than a century ago, is supposed to prevent.”

Pakistani-British-American legal scholar, FTC chair from 2021 to 2025

Lina Maliha Khan is a Pakistani-British-American legal scholar and regulator who served as chair of the Federal Trade Commission from 2021 to 2025. She is also an associate professor at Columbia Law School. Khan is known for her work on antitrust and competition policy, and for helping shape debates over the power of large firms and the role of government oversight. Her writing and public statements often focus on market concentration, regulation, and how legal rules affect competition.