Noncompetes are under pressure. Federal regulators have wanted to ban them. States like California, Minnesota, and Oklahoma already have. And even where they remain technically legal, courts are increasingly skeptical—especially when the restrictions go further than necessary. Continue reading
With most eyes focused on a pending lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania to eliminate the FTC’s noncompete ban, local employers may have missed the news last week that Governor Shapiro signed into law a measure restricting the use of non-competition agreements in the healthcare industry.
The Federal Trade Commission isn’t the only government agency gunning for your company’s noncompetes.
Earlier this month, a National Labor Relations Board Administrative Law Judge ruled that a non-union employer violated the National Labor Relations Act by utilizing unlawful noncompete and nonsolicitation provisions in employment agreements. Continue reading
I’ve litigated many battles between companies over trade secrets and non-competition and non-solicitation agreements. The tie that binds them all is that these cases are expensive to prosecute and defend. Continue reading
User:VasilievVV and user:Jarekt [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
The rest of you deadbeats are stuck with only five free weekly blog posts. Continue reading
Especially if you overlook that non-solicitation agreement you signed with your prior employer… Continue reading
Imagine that one of your top salespeople leaves to go to work for a competitor. At least you had the foresight to have her sign a nonsolicitation agreement as a condition of employment. So, your customers are safe.
Then again… Continue reading
Your former employee, the one whom you paid an extra boat load of money to sign a non-solicitation agreement, just sent a bunch of LinkedIn invites to connect with some of your current employees.
Yesterday, I had the privilege of presenting a webinar for LexisNexis with my colleague, Larry Holmes, and Sterling Miller. Larry and I have served in the restrictive-covenant trenches together many times. Sterling serves as Senior Counsel at Gober Hilgers. He’s also the former General Counsel and Chief Compliance Officer to Sabre Corporation and former General Counsel to Travelocity.com. And without any prodding from me, Sterling admitted to reading this blog. Clearly, he’s good people.
Anyway, about that webinar. The three of us riffed for an hour and twenty on the ins and outs of non-competition and non-solicitation agreements. Plus, we offered some drafting tips and discussed ways to protect confidential information. And, of course, I couldn’t resist intersecting those topics with social media. Secret sauce, anyone? At the end, we took 15 minutes of questions from folks like you.
If you’d like to get a copy of the webinar, I’m pretty sure that I can hook you up. (Don’t let me down, Lexis!) Drop me a line and I’ll do my best to take care of you.
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