Partner John Villafranco co-authored the Law360 article “Can A Single FTC Commissioner Constitute A Quorum?” The article discusses if the FTC can take formal action by a 1-0 vote and raises the question of when a commission ceases being a commission. In September 2005 the FTC acted to lower its quorum threshold and adopted a new quorum rule providing that “[a] majority of the members of the Commission in office and not recused from participating in a matter ... constitutes a quorum for the transaction of business in that matter.”[7] In doing so, however, the FTC declared that its “new rule, like its predecessor, protects against ‘totally unrepresentative action in the name of the body by an unduly small number of persons.’” With this rule, it allows a single commissioner to cause the agency to take official action.

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