Epstein Becker Green (EBG) is pleased to announce the launch of our 50-State Noncompete Survey, designed to give employers a desktop guide to the great variety and specificity of noncompete laws across the United States.
EBG’s 50-State Noncompete Survey is here to help provide key insights on all of the following areas of noncompete law in your state:Are non-competitive employees permissible?
Is there a general non-compete statute or other industry-specific statute and rules?
Are certain employees exempt from noncompetitive?
Is continued employment sufficient consideration?
Are there notice-related or other unique requirements?
Are customers and employees non-solvent permissible?
Can noncompetes…
The Board sent shockwaves through employment law in its February 21, 2023, decision in Mclaren Macombwhich held that simply offers a draft settlement agreement with broad confidentiality and non-disparagement provisions violated the National Labor Relations Act (“NLRA”). We previously blogged about the mclaren decision and encourage you to read that post for a summary of the decision.
mclaren left unanswered a host of critical questions and, in the month following the decision, employers have not received any further clarity from the Board regarding how this decision will play out in practice. But some clarity—welcome or unwelcome—is coming. At some point…
The District of Maryland recently awarded a software developer a mere $1.00 in nominal damages for contract and trade secret claims against a former employee, citing the immateriality of the defendant’s breach and plaintiff’s failure to prove a fair licensing price for its misappropriation damages.
in AirFacts, Inc. v. de AmezagaAirFacts, a developer of accounting software for airlines, filed suit against Diego de Amezaga, its former director of product development, alleging that de Amezaga’s subsequent employment violated his employment agreement with AirFacts and that de Amezaga had misappropriated various trade secrets.As part of his employment with AirFacts, de Amezaga…
Now on Spilling Secrets, our podcast series on the future of non-compete and trade secret law:
The 2023 Academy Awards are over, but we’re keeping the awards season alive with our very own Trade Secrets Fail Awards, highlighting Hollywood’s biggest missteps in depicting trade secret issues on-screen.
Panelists Peter A. Steinmeyer, Katherine G. Rigby, A. Millie Warner, and Daniel R. Levy discuss their picks for the worst trade secret theft and misappropriation in the movies and on television.* * *
Tune in to Spilling Secrets, a podcast series on the future of trade secrets and non-compete law.
Each episode…
The FTC announced yesterday that it was extending the deadline to submit public comments on its proposed rule banning non-competitive employment.
With the extension, the FTC will now accept comments on the proposed rule until April 19. Originally, the deadline for submitting comments was March 20.
Information on how to submit comments can be found in the Federal Register notice.The Commission voted approving the public comment period extension was 4-0, with Commissioner Christine S. Wilson issuing a concurring statement.
100 business organizations had previously requested a sixty day extension on the public comment deadline.
Commissioner Wilson, who recently announced…
Thomson Reuters Practical Law has released the 2023 update to “Garden Leave Provisions in Employment Agreements,” co-authored by our colleague Peter A. Steinmeyer and Lauri F. Rasnick.
The Note discusses garden leave provisions in employment agreements as an alternative or a companion to traditional employee non-compete agreements. It addresses the differences between garden leave and non-compete provisions, the benefits and drawbacks of garden leave, and drafting considerations for employers that wish to use garden leave provisions. This Note applies to private employers and is jurisdiction neutral.Following is an excerpt (see below to download the full version in PDF format):…
This post was originally published as a Seyfarth Legal Update.
In a January 11, 2023 op-ed published in the Wall StreetJournal, President Joe Biden urged “Democrats and Republicans to come together to pass strong bipartisan legislation to hold Big Tech accountable.” He warned that the “risks Big Tech poses to ordinary Americans are clear. Big Tech companies collect huge amounts of data” about technology users, including “the places we go,” and argued that “we need serious federal protections for Americans’ privacy. That means clear limits on how companies can collect, use and share highly personal data,” including location data.Potential…
“Practices that three unelected bureaucrats find distasteful will be labeled with nefarious adjectives and summarily condemned, with little to no evidence of harm to competition. I fear the consequences for our economy, and for the FTC as an institution”
– FTC Commissioner Christine S. Wilson
The Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) started 2023 with a bang. In addition to issuing a proposed Rule that would ban post-employment non-competes nationwide, the FTC announced that it had settled two previously undisclosed enforcement actions and entered into proposed consent orders with three employers based on a novel legal theory. According to the Complaints filed…
