A law firm can terminate an at-will lawyer who refuses to sign an agreement prohibiting them from soliciting the firm’s customers or clients following cessation of employment, according to the Supreme Court of Kentucky. In...more
12/11/2019
/ Appeals ,
At-Will Employment ,
Contract Terms ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Litigation ,
Hiring & Firing ,
KY Supreme Court ,
Legal Representatives ,
Non-Solicitation Agreements ,
Restrictive Covenants ,
Solicitation ,
Unlawful Practices ,
Wrongful Termination
Following in the footsteps of its neighbors Maine, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire, Rhode Island recently enacted legislation that restricts the use of non-competition agreements with certain types of employees. The Rhode...more
11/6/2019
/ Confidential Information ,
Contract Terms ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Contract ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Intellectual Property Protection ,
Labor Regulations ,
Low-Wage Workers ,
New Legislation ,
Non-Compete Agreements ,
Restrictive Covenants ,
State and Local Government ,
State Labor Laws
In Shareholder Representative Services LLC v. RSI Holdco, LLC, C.A. No. 2018-0517-KSJM (Del. Ch. May 29, 2019), the Delaware Court of Chancery held that a merger agreement provision assigning pre-merger privilege held by...more
Washington state has joined the ranks of an ever-growing number of states that impose significant restrictions on employee non-compete agreements....more
5/15/2019
/ Confidential Information ,
Contract Terms ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Contract ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Independent Contractors ,
New Legislation ,
Non-Compete Agreements ,
Restrictive Covenants ,
State and Local Government ,
State Labor Laws
As readers of this blog well know, there is a growing trend of state legislatures seeking to limit or outright ban non-competes....more
3/18/2019
/ Confidential Information ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Contract ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Intellectual Property Protection ,
Legislative Agendas ,
Non-Compete Agreements ,
Proposed Legislation ,
Restrictive Covenants ,
State and Local Government ,
State Labor Laws
After being slapped with a post-trial judgment last April totaling $2.2 million for misappropriation of confidential and proprietary information, two Wyoming bank executives were named in an unprecedented “Notice of Intent to...more
3/14/2019
/ Banks ,
Breach of Duty ,
Confidential Information ,
Criminal Conspiracy ,
Federal Reserve ,
Fiduciary Duty ,
FSB ,
Misappropriation ,
Orders of Prohibition ,
Post-Trial Order ,
Proprietary Information ,
Trade Secrets
Last week, Florida Senator Marco Rubio introduced the “Freedom to Compete Act” (the “Act”) proposing to amend the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) of 1938 to ban non-competes for most non-exempt workers. ...more
The battle for control of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (“CFPB”) raged on last Thursday during oral argument before the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in English v. Trump....more
On Monday, January 29th, Faraday & Future Inc., the electric car manufacturer founded by Chinese billionaire and entrepreneur Jia Yueting, filed a one-count Defend Trade Secrets Act complaint against Evelozcity, Inc., an...more
The Massachusetts legislature is back at it again. Under new leadership, the Joint Committee on Labor & Workforce Development recently scheduled a hearing for October 31, 2017 on the non-compete reform bills proposed in...more
The Defend Trade Secrets Act (DTSA) states very clearly that an injunction issued pursuant thereto may not “prevent a person from entering into an employment relationship,” and that any conditions placed on a former...more
7/12/2017
/ Confidential Information ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Defend Trade Secrets Act (DTSA) ,
Employment Contract ,
Employment Litigation ,
Inevitable Disclosure Doctrine ,
Injunctions ,
Intellectual Property Protection ,
Misappropriation ,
Non-Compete Agreements ,
Non-Solicitation Agreements ,
Trade Secrets ,
TRO
In a recent formal Ethics Opinion, the American Bar Association stressed that lawyers must make reasonable efforts to prevent inadvertent or unauthorized access to confidential information relating to the representation of...more
5/23/2017
/ American Bar Association (ABA) ,
Confidential Information ,
Confidentiality Policies ,
Cybersecurity ,
Data Security ,
Electronic Communications ,
Email ,
Encryption ,
Law Practice Management ,
Popular ,
Young Lawyers
Last Friday, on January 20, 2017, the Massachusetts Legislature began its annual tradition of attempting to promulgate non-compete and trade secret reform in the Commonwealth. A new bill has been filed by the same legislators...more
This past Spring, we reported on the recently enacted Defend Trade Secrets Act (“DTSA”), which provides a new federal civil cause of action to trade secret owners seeking to pursue claims of trade secret misappropriation. ...more
12/21/2016
/ Affirmative Defenses ,
Confidential Information ,
Conversion ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Defend Trade Secrets Act (DTSA) ,
Evidence ,
Immunity ,
Misappropriation ,
Motion to Compel ,
Motion to Dismiss ,
Preliminary Injunctions ,
Trade Secrets ,
Whistleblowers
As the Obama administration winds down, its regulators are showing no signs of letting up. Last week the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) decided that it should no longer be constrained by its subpoena power...more
11/11/2016
/ Algorithmic Trading ,
Barack Obama ,
CFTC ,
Commodity Futures Contracts ,
Due Process ,
ETFs ,
New Regulations ,
Popular ,
Public Comment ,
Subpoenas ,
Trade Secrets ,
Trump Administration
Earlier this fall, the U.S. District Court in Massachusetts transferred an employee’s declaratory judgment action to the Eastern District of Michigan pursuant to a forum-selection clause in a non-compete agreement over the...more
We’ve written a lot this summer about the Massachusetts legislature’s latest failed attempt at non-compete reform. Two other states in New England, however, are able to claim accomplishments in that regard. Specifically,...more
8/23/2016
/ Contract Terms ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Contract ,
Former Employee ,
Health Care Providers ,
Healthcare ,
New Legislation ,
Non-Compete Agreements ,
Non-Solicitation Agreements ,
Physicians ,
Restrictive Covenants
Seyfarth Synopsis: Court holds placing more than two debt collection calls to a Massachusetts consumer debtor In a seven-day period can violate the Massachusetts debt collection regulations even if the debtor does not answer...more
On May 5, 2016, the White House issued a report largely piggybacking on a recent U.S. Treasury Department study, on which we previously posted, with a primary focus on the purported misuse and negative impacts of non-compete...more
The U.S. Department of Treasury recently released a study on the effect of non-compete agreements, taking a hard line with respect to their social and economic benefits and purported harms. Specifically, while the authors of...more
On March 25, 2016, a Massachusetts Superior Court judge struck down skin care salon Elizabeth Grady Face First, Inc.’s (“Elizabeth Grady” or the “Company”) attempt to make its non-compete agreement seem prettier than it...more