The Employer Handbook Blog
Ready, fire, aim.
That’s the approach that many employers take when seeking to enforce a covenant not to compete with a former employee.
Articles Posted in Trade Secrets
President Obama signs bipartisan bill protecting trade secrets under federal law
I’m mailing this one in, folks. I mean, did the two of you who actually clicked on today’s post read the title first?!? (I practically fell asleep at “bipartisan”)
And, if you need to catch up on your zzzz’s, you can read a copy of “Defend Trade Secrets Act of 2016” here. The workplace implications are simple: Companies can now sue employees in state or (for the first time) federal court for trade secret misappropriation.
Now, to actually make this post worth your while, I’m going to remind you that there’s still time to enter my contest. One lucky reader will get my official copy of O’Connor’s Federal Employment Codes Plus 2015-2016 edition. And I will inscribe a personalized message in said book. In blue highlighter.
Non-competition agreements are the Butter Brickle of employment law.
Non-competition agreements haven’t gotten much play on this blog. It’s like going into an ice cream shop and ordering Butter Brickle. Meh. Yet, there it is: Butter Brickle, right between classics like Vanilla and Chocolate and those newer flavors, Tahitian Vanilla and Chocolate Dreamsicle.
As a mainstay, every once and a while, I must page homage.
***spoons Butter Brickle into gaping mouth***
It’s pretty good, you know.
And non-competes….let’s discuss them too. Specifically, what happens if a former employee joins a top competitor, and, by the time a judge is ready to do something about it, the non-competition agreement is about to expire? Will the court level the playing field and restart the non-compete?
Yes, your employees can legally record most workplace conversations
Back when the Lamborghini Countach poster was in your bedroom, spinach and artichoke dip was on the menu, and it was hip to be square, this image would have been fitting for this blog — what’s a blog?!?! — post.
Yes, there was a time when a secret recording in the workplace implied an expectation of privacy in whatever conversation was recorded. But, now, everyone has a smartphone and, with a few quick thumb taps, an easy way to audio or video record anything and everything.
So, who among us has a reasonable expectation of privacy at work?
According to the National Labor Relations Board, practically no one who works for the company.
Hocus Pocus: PA Supremes eliminate magic language for creating non-compete loopholes
On Wednesday, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court made a lot of — some would say, creative — lawyers unhappy.
Everything you need to know about restrictive covenants and protecting confidential business information
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.
When your recently-fired employee shares the secret sauce on Twitter
No, the secret sauce isn’t ketchup. Or is it?
Literally. Continue reading
Your ex-employee won’t tell you the password to your company’s LinkedIn page. Now what?
Your company has set up a private LinkedIn Group. Your company, which controls who may become a member of the Group, has seen the number of Group members swell to nearly 700. Way to go! Because it’s a private group, the names of all of the group members are not generally available to the public.
Now, let’s say that the employee whom you have appointed to manage the LinkedIn Group — the one who knows all the passwords — up and leaves. And, of course, he doesn’t return the passwords. What can you do?
How about a lawsuit for misappropriation of trade secrets? Continue reading
Though employees may not balk at signing non-competes, the key is when to use them.
Last week it was #thedress. Before that, Kim Kardashian broke the internet. But, first, there was the Jimmy John’s non-competition agreement kerfuffle that dominated my Twitter. Probably not yours though, because you have a life. Then again, here you are reading this post, pot.
Or shall I call you kettle?
Will the PA Supreme Court revolutionize non-compete agreements?
I meant to write about this a week or so ago after I saw Dan Packel’s article at Law360. But, then, I got sidetracked with a bunch of NLRB stuff. Until, yesterday, Lizzy McLellan’s article at The Legal Intelligencer brought me back.
So, here’s the deal. The basic rule in PA has always been that, for a non-compete to be enforceable, it needs to be entered into when employment begins (i.e., as consideration for offering employment), or there needs to be some independent consideration to support it (e.g., a raise, bonus, promotion, etc.).
However, some outlier judicial decisions in PA have concluded that PA’s Uniform Written Obligations Act magically adds consideration to any agreement with the words “intending to be legally bound.”