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Implement or “implementation” means the development or putting into place of a policy or procedure, including the appropriate training of all relevant personnel, and the consistent and verified performance of that policy or procedure in actual practice.
Hmm. Bad terminology on my part.
@Kolyin A rule isn’t legally “implemented” until it can be enforced — a court stay means it’s not being implemented. But note that the mere fact of the FTC being sued doesn’t prevent implementation — the court has to go further and issue a preliminary injunction (an order that says “this rule can’t be enforced until the court case has been resolved”), which happens in a minority of cases
@CateHall I don't think "implemented" and "enforceable" are necessarily synonymous, which is why I asked. The FTC converted their proposal into a final, published rule, and it could reasonably be said colloquially that they therefore "implemented" it. Yours is the more natural legal reading, but it's not clear that's the reading the maker intended.
@Kolyin I think it’s a large problem if people use legal terms in legal questions and then decide to ignore their legal meaning in favor of “colloquial” (how do people use “implemented” colloquially?) ones
@CateHall It would be a rather larger problem to expect laypeople to use legal terminology in a way that satisfies lawyers. Especially since lawyers habitually argue over the meaning of words.
There isn't an objective way to figure out what the word means, at least prior to the market maker resolving the market. Sometimes that works out (I made a small profit on this ambiguity, I think) and sometimes not. Maybe over time, the marketplace will come to prefer particularly clear markets. Here's one with some very rigorous criteria, written in a way that makes it relatively obvious to a layperson whether they've been satisfied or not: https://manifold.markets/NateWatson/will-public-officials-be-barred-fro Here's one with a much simpler one that is nearly as clear: https://manifold.markets/CodeandSolder/will-scouts-affirm-in-lindke-v-free (Both of these are unresolved regardless, by the way, making them an easy take if the makers do resolve them.) Or possibly it will favor loosey-goosey markets where the real action is trying to guess which way the decider will jump.
Expecting laypeople to hew to the standards of the legal profession would not, in my experience, make things any clearer or more objective. I don't think there's any better solution than just asking the maker what they mean and gambling accordingly.
FYI, if you're interested in the injunction odds, I put up a related market yesterday: https://manifold.markets/Kolyin/will-the-ftcs-new-rule-banning-nonc (I committed to not betting in it, which I'm now regretting because it seems very underpriced at the moment.) I suppose I could have tried to make the distinction between a TRO and a PI clear, but decided it was overkill given that most users aren't litigators. Someone else put up another one that looks to the final results: https://manifold.markets/MattLashofSullivan/will-the-ftcs-new-noncompete-ban-be?r=TWF0dExhc2hvZlN1bGxpdmFu
@Kolyin I appreciate the careful response and agree that the best method of handling cases like this is always going to be clear resolution criteria. Perhaps it would be best for me to stop betting on legal questions since this has been a source of frustration to me on more than one occasion :) It seems like a shame, though, from the perspective of eliciting latent knowledge, for lawyers to self-select out of the betting pool on legal questions because of the variance of law-contrary interpretations.
FWIW, the first dictionary definition of "implement" is "put into effect," which I would say is clearly not satisfied if the order never affects a decision in any case, but I have resolved my hangup by canceling my limit order.