Even after leaving government service, former federal employees are subject to certain ethics restrictions. Most of these "post-employment" restrictions can be found in a criminal conflict of interest statute, 18 U.S.C. § 207. Regulations issued by the Office of Government Ethics supplement the statutory provisions. See 5 C.F.R. § 2641. In addition, former Commission employees must seek clearance under Commission Rule 4.1 before participating in many FTC matters that were pending or directly resulted from matters that were pending during their FTC tenure.
If a former Commission employee is prohibited from participating in a specific proceeding or investigation because that person participated personally and substantially in the same matter while working for the FTC, then that former employee’s law firm, partners, or legal/business associates are barred from participating in that same proceeding or investigation, unless they take certain measures to screen the former employee from participating and they file a screening affidavit with the Commission attesting to such measures, in accordance with Commission Rule 4.1(b)(8).
You are strongly encouraged to consult an ethics official before submitting a clearance request to confirm whether a request is necessary and, if so, to streamline processing of your request. Clearance requests and screening affidavits must be submitted to ElectronicFilings@ftc.gov, and you should copy the ethics official with whom you consulted prior to submission to expedite processing of your request. Please contact one of the following ethics officials for further assistance: Craig Bannon at cbannon@ftc.gov or 202-326-2067; Jeremy Wong at jwong2@ftc.gov or 202-326-2862; or Andreea Micklis at amicklis@ftc.gov or 202-326-2432.