On April 18, 2024, the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”), Justice Department (“DOJ”), and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”) launched an online reporting portal, HealthyCompetition.gov, for the public to...more
On April 23, 2024, the FTC announced its Final Non-Compete Clause Rule (“Final Rule”), which bans post-employment non-compete clauses between employers and their workers. The Final Rule becomes effective 120 days after being...more
4/25/2024
/ Competition ,
Confidential Information ,
Contract Terms ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Contract ,
Federal Labor Laws ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Final Rules ,
FTC Act ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Intellectual Property Protection ,
Labor Reform ,
Non-Compete Agreements ,
Restrictive Covenants
This afternoon, the FTC voted to adopt a proposed final rule banning most non-competes with workers in the United States. The final rule provides that it is an unfair method of competition—and therefore a violation of Section...more
4/24/2024
/ Employees ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Contract ,
Federal Labor Laws ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Final Rules ,
FTC Act ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Labor Reform ,
Non-Compete Agreements ,
Proposed Rules ,
Trade Secrets
On March 21, 2024, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (“FDIC”) approved a Federal Register notice seeking public comment on its proposal to revise its current Statement of Policy on Bank Merger Transactions. Among the...more
4/11/2024
/ Antitrust Provisions ,
Bank Merger Act ,
Banks ,
Comment Period ,
FDIC ,
Financial Regulatory Reform ,
Financial Services Industry ,
Merger Agreements ,
Merger Controls ,
Non-Compete Agreements ,
Proposed Rules
By any measure, the world has changed vastly since we issued our first Commercial Litigation Outlook in 2020. We are now on our fourth installment of providing insights and flagging trends for what to expect in the coming...more
2/16/2024
/ Arbitration ,
Artificial Intelligence ,
Banks ,
Class Action ,
Commercial Bankruptcy ,
Commercial Court ,
Commercial Litigation ,
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) ,
Copyright ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Environmental Social & Governance (ESG) ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Financial Services Industry ,
Intellectual Property Protection ,
Machine Learning ,
Merger Agreements ,
Patents ,
Trademarks
Seyfarth Synopsis: The health care sector faces escalating cybersecurity risks given its size, technological dependence and the sensitive nature of data used therein. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human...more
1/23/2024
/ Cybersecurity ,
Data Breach ,
Data Privacy ,
Data Protection ,
Data Security ,
Data Theft ,
Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) ,
Electronic Protected Health Information (ePHI) ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Health Care Providers ,
Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) ,
Information Technology ,
OCR ,
PHI ,
Policies and Procedures ,
Popular
On May 31, 2023, a Harris County Texas District Court jury found a telecom company acted in bad faith by filing a $23 million trade secret misappropriation lawsuit against a rival where the underlying technology was found to...more
On June 13, 2023, Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed a major new patient safety bill into law that is intended both to reform the disciplinary authority of the Texas Medical Board (TMB) and to better protect patients from...more
6/29/2023
/ Health Care Providers ,
Healthcare ,
Healthcare Reform ,
Hospitals ,
Medical License ,
National Practitioner Data Bank (NPDB) ,
New Legislation ,
New Regulations ,
Patient Safety ,
Peer Review ,
Physicians ,
Regulatory Requirements ,
Texas
The FTC is not alone in taking aim at non-competes. Yesterday, the NLRB’s General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo issued a memo to all regional directors, officers-in-charge, and resident officers at the NLRB stating that...more
Recently, Seyfarth Partner Jesse Coleman had the opportunity to present an American Intellectual Property Law Association (“AIPLA”) webinar titled “Working with Experts and Recent Developments in Trade Secrets Damages.”...more
For those interested in commenting on the FTC’s proposed rule banning nearly all non-competes, today, April 19, is your deadline to do so!...more
The FTC announced yesterday that it was extending the deadline to submit public comments on its proposed rule banning employment non-competes. ...more
Welcome to the third annual installment of Seyfarth Shaw’s Commercial Litigation Outlook, where our nationally recognized team provides insights about litigation issues and trends to expect in 2023. The continuing global...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: On January 13, 2023, the United States Supreme Court granted certiorari on a pair of hotly contested Seventh Circuit decisions, paving the way for a decision that will dramatically impact the way in which...more
On January 4, 2023, the Dallas Court of Appeals in Texas affirmed a summary judgment in a trade secrets physician staffing case that stands as a warning to practitioners regarding (1) what constitutes sufficient damages...more
As our colleagues have previously reported in this blog, on January 5, 2023, the Federal Trade Commission issued a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) concerning its unprecedented effort to ban all non-compete clauses with...more
On August 10, 2022, Colorado’s new statute further restricting non-competition and non-solicitation provisions becomes effective. The new law, which passed earlier this year, continues Colorado’s trend toward increased...more
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) recently set its sights squarely on non-compete agreements in merger transactions, making them ripe for further scrutiny. In a Consent Order issued June 14, 2022, the FTC ordered GPM...more
On June 17, 2022, the Texas Supreme Court affirmed a lower appellate court’s decision, (which we previously wrote about here), which nixed the plaintiff’s $740 million trade secret win at trial and required the plaintiff to...more
A federal court in Texas recently provided useful insights on what constitutes “solicitation” by a former employee under that employee’s restrictive covenant with his former employer, and the court provided further insights...more
Welcome to the second annual installment of Seyfarth Shaw’s Commercial Litigation Outlook. Our nationally recognized team provides keen insights about what to expect in 2022. In short, it will be a busy year that will call...more
3/15/2022
/ Class Action ,
Commercial Bankruptcy ,
Commercial Court ,
Commercial Litigation ,
Cybersecurity ,
Data Privacy ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Financial Services Industry ,
FinTech
After a four day bench trial on August 10, 2021, a Houston federal judge ruled that the conceptual designs an oil and gas manufacturing company disclosed to its erstwhile collaborator under an NDA were not eligible for trade...more
The Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals issued an order Wednesday, denying the U.S. Government’s attempt to stay an injunction issued by the Western District of Louisiana court, which entered a nationwide injunction against...more
Throughout 2021, our dedicated Trade Secrets, Computer Fraud & Non-Competes Practice Group hosted a series of CLE webinars that addressed significant trade secret and restrictive covenant issues facing clients today. This...more
On November 29, 2021, a federal district court in Missouri issued a preliminary injunction blocking the implementation and enforcement of a rule promulgated by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (“CMS”) requiring...more