Trade Secrets & Employee Mobility

Louisiana has long had in its statutes one of the nation’s most distinctive non-compete laws, and that statute has just been amended in a subtle but important way.  LA. R.S. 23:921 essentially provides that every agreement that restrains someone from engaging in any profession, trade or business is null and void, unless the prohibition against competing meets one of the specific exceptions provided in the statute.

Within the context of employer-employee relationships, Louisiana law permits non-compete agreements where the agreement restricts the employee “from carrying on ...

Virginia may be for lovers, but it no longer loves non-compete agreements.  Starting on July 1, 2020, employers may not “enter into, enforce, or threaten to enforce” a non-compete agreement with any “low-wage employee.”  As previously reported, this law is just one of the many new employment laws enacted during the 2020 legislative session.

Who Qualifies as a “Low-Wage” Employee?

Senate Bill 480 defines “low-wage employee” as a worker whose average weekly earnings during the previous 52 weeks “are less than the average weekly wage of the Commonwealth” as ...

Thomson Reuters Practical Law has released the 2020 update to “Trade Secret Laws: Connecticut,” a Q&A guide to state law on trade secrets and confidentiality for private employers, co-authored by our colleagues David S. Poppick and Carol J. Faherty, attorneys in Epstein Becker Green’s Stamford office.

Click here to download the full Q&A in PDF format.

After more than three years of litigation and two rounds of extensive discovery, in Calendar Research LLC v. StubHub, Inc., et al., 2:17-cv-04062-SVW-SS, the United States District Court for the Central District of California dismissed almost all the remaining claims against StubHub and the other defendants.  In doing so, the Court confirmed that in California, specific identifiable trade secrets are required and general industry knowledge and “know how” is insufficient for trade secret protection.

The individual defendants founded and/or worked for a startup named ...

We’re pleased to present the 2020 update to “Hiring from a Competitor: Practical Tips to Minimize Litigation Risk,” published by Thomson Reuters Practical Law.

Following is an excerpt - see below to download the full version:

In most industries, competition is not limited to battles over customers and clients, but also includes efforts to recruit, employ, and retain the most productive and talented workforce. In fact, many employers consider their employees to be their most valuable assets and vigorously work to prevent competitors from taking those assets. For that ...

On April 27, 2020, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed a lower court’s decision to grant a preliminary injunction preventing a real estate agent from working for a competitor, because her non-compete, attached to a grant of restrictive stock units, was likely enforceable despite the agent’s forfeiture of the company stock.

The employee in this case worked for Martha Turner Sotheby’s International Realty (“Martha Turner”) in Houston, Texas for over four years. Approximately nine months before her resignation, Martha Turner’s parent company ...

Citing Nebraska’s fundamental public policy, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit recently affirmed a District Court’s refusal to enforce a Delaware choice of law clause in a non-compete agreement signed by a Nebraska employee.

Delaware law is generally favorable to enforcing non-compete restrictions.  Hundreds of thousands of new corporate entities (corporations, LLCs, LPs, LLCs, etc.) are created in Delaware every year, and the First State is home to more than two-thirds of the Fortune 500 and 80 percent of all firms that go public.[1] Many of these Delaware ...

Joining many other states that in recent years have enacted laws regarding physician non-competition agreements, Indiana recently enacted a statute that will place restrictions on such agreements which are originally entered into on or after July 1, 2020.

Under Pub. L. No. 93-2020 (to be codified in part as Ind. Code § 25-22.5-5.5) (2020), which will take effect on July 1, 2020, for a non-compete to be enforceable against a physician licensed in Indiana, the agreement must contain the following provisions:

1. A provision that requires the employer of the physician to provide the ...

A recent decision issued by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, San Jose Division, presents a stark example of what can result when a defendant accused of trade secret misappropriation is careless in preserving electronically stored information (“ESI”) relevant to the lawsuit.

Silicon Valley-based autonomous car startup WeRide Corp. and WeRide Inc. (collectively, “WeRide”) sued rival self-driving car company AllRide.AI Inc. (“AllRide”), along with two of its former executives and AllRide’s related companies, asserting claims ...

When Massachusetts enacted the Massachusetts Noncompetition Agreement Act (“MNCA”) in mid-2018, some commentators suggested that the statute reflected an anti-employer tilt in public policy. But, we advised  that sophisticated employers advised by knowledgeable counsel could navigate the restrictions set forth in the MNCA.  As reported here, the May 2019 decision from the District of Massachusetts in Nuvasive Inc. v. Day and Richard, 19-cv-10800 (D. Mass. May 29, 2019) (Nuvasive I) supported our initial reading of the MNCA.   The First Circuit’s April 8, 2020 decision in ...