Real World Impact: Making good on her promise to make a ruling on the FTC Noncompete Rule on or before August 30, 2024, United States District Judge Ada Brown granted a motion for summary judgment that sets aside the FTC...more
8/21/2024
/ Competition ,
Confidential Information ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Contract ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Final Rules ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Intellectual Property Protection ,
Non-Compete Agreements ,
Restrictive Covenants ,
Summary Judgment
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) issued an extremely broad Final Rule banning most non-competes. As expected, there have been multiple court challenges to the Final Rule, but, to date, no court has issued a nationwide...more
8/13/2024
/ Competition ,
Confidential Information ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Contract ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Final Rules ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Injunctive Relief ,
Intellectual Property Protection ,
Motion To Enjoin ,
Non-Compete Agreements ,
Restrictive Covenants
Real World Impact: The recent decision by a Texas federal district court judge enjoining the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) from implementing its regulation banning most noncompetes provides relief for the parties in that...more
As we recently reported, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) issued its long-awaited final rule on April 23, 2024, banning virtually all noncompetition agreements between employers and workers. Lawsuits challenging the final...more
5/8/2024
/ Competition ,
Confidential Information ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Contract ,
Federal Labor Laws ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Federal v State Law Application ,
Final Rules ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Intellectual Property Protection ,
Labor Reform ,
New York ,
Non-Compete Agreements ,
Restrictive Covenants ,
State Labor Laws
Join FordHarrison attorneys Jeffrey Lehrer and Jeff Mokotoff for a pertinent webinar on navigating and understanding the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) new rule banning noncompetes.
On April 23, 2024, the Federal Trade...more
On April 23, 2024, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) issued its long-awaited final rule, banning virtually all noncompetition agreements between employers and workers. Just as the ink dried, the first lawsuit (of several...more
4/24/2024
/ Competition ,
Confidential Information ,
Contract Terms ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Contract ,
Federal Labor Laws ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Intellectual Property Protection ,
Labor Reform ,
Non-Compete Agreements ,
Restrictive Covenants
Prior to the enactment of the Georgia Restrictive Covenant Act (“RCA”), Georgia courts interpreted noncompete provisions entered into in the context of selling a business differently than they did between employers and...more
Historically, Georgia courts have declined to apply another state’s law to determine whether to enforce restrictive covenants against a Georgia employee, regardless of whether the agreement stated that another state’s law...more
Prior to the enactment of Georgia’s Restrictive Covenant Act (“RCA”) in May 2011, Georgia courts uniformly held void and unenforceable “in any capacity” non-compete provisions in the employer-employee context. “In any...more
Earlier this year, in Steuer v. Tomaras, et al., Georgia’s Statewide Business Court again refused to modify certain restrictive covenants that were missing a territory. Dr. Steuer, a former partner of the defendant doctors,...more
7/12/2022
/ Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Contract ,
Employment Litigation ,
Georgia ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Non-Compete Agreements ,
Non-Solicitation Agreements ,
Restrictive Covenants ,
State Labor Laws ,
Unenforceable Contract Terms ,
Void Contracts
Last month, in American Plumbing Professionals, Inc. v. ServeStar, LLC, Georgia’s Court of Appeals reversed a trial court’s determination that a non-compete provision was unenforceable and void because its territory was too...more
In Tanium v. Yago et al., the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia recently reminded us of a few things: (1) customer contact information can constitute a trade secret; (2) the Georgia Restrictive Covenant...more
The more things change, the more they stay the same. That adage is apparent in Georgia’s non-compete law, which had a major overhaul in May 2011, when Georgia’s Restrictive Covenant Act (RCA) became effective. The RCA...more
In May 2011, Georgia’s Restrictive Covenant Act (OCGA 13-8-50 et seq.) (“RCA”) became effective and applied to all agreements executed on or after May 11, 2011. In 2020, the Georgia State-wide Business Court (“Business...more
Executive Summary: The Georgia Restrictive Covenants Act (O.C.G.A. § 13-8-50, et seq.) (“RCA”) governs restrictive covenant agreements in Georgia entered into after May 2011. The RCA expressly addresses non-compete,...more
6/20/2020
/ Abuse of Discretion ,
Confidential Information ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Contract ,
Employment Litigation ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Intellectual Property Protection ,
No-Hire/No-Solicitation Agreements ,
Non-Compete Agreements ,
Non-Disclosure Agreement ,
Non-Solicitation Agreements ,
Restrictive Covenants
In late 2019, the Northern District of Georgia (Atlanta federal court) addressed the duties owed when an independent contractor leaves one trucking company to work for another. In Wind Logistics Prof’l v. Universal Truckload,...more
3/3/2020
/ Breach of Duty ,
Commercial Truck Drivers ,
Contract Terms ,
Duty of Loyalty ,
Employment Contract ,
Employment Litigation ,
Fiduciary Duty ,
Former Employee ,
Independent Contractors ,
Non-Compete Agreements ,
Restrictive Covenants ,
Trucking Industry
Applying the “economic realities” test, the Fifth Circuit (with jurisdiction over federal courts in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas) recently held that a consultant for an oil and gas company was not subject to FLSA...more
2/26/2020
/ Appeals ,
Compensation & Benefits ,
Contract Terms ,
Economic Realities Test ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Litigation ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
Gig Economy ,
Independent Contractors ,
Misclassification ,
Non-Compete Agreements ,
Summary Judgment ,
Unpaid Overtime ,
Unpaid Wages ,
Wage and Hour ,
White-Collar Exemptions
Georgia’s Restrictive Covenants Act (O.C.G.A. § 13-8-50 et seq.) (“RCA”) governs Georgia non-compete agreements entered into after May 2011. Very few courts have interpreted the RCA since its inception. In Bearoff v. Craton,...more
9/4/2019
/ Appeals ,
Breach of Contract ,
Business Disputes ,
Business Litigation ,
Cease and Desist Orders ,
Chapter 11 ,
Chapter 7 ,
Commercial Bankruptcy ,
Confidential Information ,
Contract Terms ,
Intellectual Property Protection ,
Liquidation ,
Non-Compete Agreements ,
Restrictive Covenants ,
Selling a Business ,
Statutory Interpretation
The Georgia Restrictive Covenants Act (O.C.G.A. § 13-8-50 et seq.) governs non-compete agreements in Georgia entered into after May 2011 and sets forth that such agreements can be used only with respect to certain employees. ...more
3/14/2019
/ Appeals ,
Competition ,
Confidential Information ,
Employee Definition ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Contract ,
Employment Litigation ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Job Duties ,
Non-Compete Agreements ,
Restrictive Covenants
This month, the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit affirmed a lower court’s award of attorneys’ fees to an employer after it had been granted a preliminary injunction against its former employees. See Kelly...more
Last month, California’s Fourth District Court of Appeal issued AMN Healthcare, Inc. v. Aya Healthcare Servs., Inc., 28 Cal. App. 5th 923 (Cal. Ct. App. 2018), a decision calling into question the validity of non-solicitation...more
12/7/2018
/ Anti-Piracy ,
Appeals ,
Breach of Contract ,
Confidential Information ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Contract ,
Employment Litigation ,
Hiring & Firing ,
No-Poaching ,
Non-Compete Agreements ,
Non-Solicitation Agreements ,
Staffing Agencies
Georgia’s Restrictive Covenants Act (the “RCA”) became effective in May 2011, but it took nearly six years before a court published a decision interpreting the statute in the context of a non-competition provision....more
Effective May 2011, Georgia’s Restrictive Covenants Act (RCA) represented a significant change to pre-existing Georgia law. Since then, however, very few courts have interpreted the RCA, leaving employers and practitioners...more
Georgia’s recent Restrictive Covenant Act, enacted in 2011, does not directly address non-solicitation of employees a/k/a non-recruitment covenants, thereby leaving such provisions subject to the principles developed by...more
11/21/2017
/ Appeals ,
Cease and Desist Orders ,
Confidential Information ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Contract ,
Employment Litigation ,
Geographic Markets ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Non-Compete Agreements ,
Non-Solicitation Agreements ,
Restrictive Covenants
It’s time to bring back FordHarrison’s Non-Compete News! And what better way to kick off 2017 than with Lifebrite Labs, LLC v. Cooksey (N.D. Ga. December 2016), Georgia’s first-ever published decision interpreting how a...more