Trade Secrets & Employee Mobility

A bill pending in the Massachusetts legislature (House No. H4607) which would have amended the state's laws on non-compete agreements, has died in committee and will not go forward. The bill's sponsor, however, intends to introduce another bill on the same subject at a later date.

In October 2010, in Xplore Technologies Corp. v. Killion, CV10-5013459S, a Connecticut state court examined whether a non-competition clause that had no specified geographic requirement was enforceable. The Court enforced the clause and held that the geographic area was defined by the uniqueness of the product at issue and the limited potential customers for it.

In October 2009, in Sunbelt Rentals, Inc. v. Ehlers, 333 Ill.Dec. 791, 915 N.E.2d 862 (Ill. App. Ct. 2009), an Illinois appellate court reexamined and rejected over thirty years of well-established precedent regarding the enforceability of restrictive covenants. Specifically, it rejected the "legitimate business interest" test long applied as a threshold issue by Illinois courts when deciding the enforceability of a restrictive covenant. Last week, in Steam Sales Corporation v. Brian Summers, the first Illinois Appellate District other than the Fourth District re-visited the issue of whether the "legitimate business interest" still applied.

When drafting employee confidentiality agreements, there is a tendency to think that no restriction can be too tight. However, a recent decision by the Illinois Appellate Court, The Town of Cicero v. Wayne A. Johnson, held that a confidentiality provision in a separation agreement was so onerous that the entire provision was unenforceable.

In the latest example of a significant international trade secret theft resulting in a federal criminal prosecution, chemist David Yen Lee recently pleaded guilty in federal court in Chicago to "knowingly and without authorization" possessing one or more trade secrets of his former employer Valspar Corporation with intent to convert them "to the economic benefit of someone other than the owner."

A July 27, 2010 decision by the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, in Bimbo Bakeries USA, Inc. v. Botticella, No. 10-1510, upheld an injunction preventing a senior executive from commencing employment at Hostess Brands, Inc., a bakery rival to the plaintiff Bimbo. The decision is notable in that the Court enjoined Mr. Botticella's employment, in the absence of any non-competition agreement, on the basis that there was a "substantial likelihood," but not an "inevitability," that Mr. Botticella would disclose or use Bimbo's trade secrets in the course of his planned employment at Hostess.

Applying Missouri law, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit recently affirmed an award of $1,369,921 in liquidated damages stemming from the alleged violation of non-solicitation agreements by four former employees of accounting firm Mayer Hoffman McCann.

On July 30, 2010, in Silguero v. Creteguard, Inc., the California Court of Appeal (2nd District) held that an employee could state a claim for wrongful termination against her subsequent employer when that employer terminated her after having been informed by her former employer that the employee was subject to a non-compete clause. The decision will have important consequences for companies with California employees in industries where non-competition and non-solicitation agreements are common.

In a recent decision issued by the Supreme Court of the State of New York, New York County, a lawsuit brought by Marsh USA Inc. against two former employees and a competitor was sustained in the face of the defendants' challenge to the complaint on grounds of forum non conveniens and failure to state a cause of action. The decision is notable for its application of New York non-competition law to California residents, and Marsh's inclusion of forum selection clauses and choice of law provisions in its agreements with the individual defendants appears to have enabled it to avoid the draconian effect of California law upon those individual's non-compete agreements.

When hiring new employees, you can minimize the risk of inadvertently becoming embroiled in trade secret litigation by taking a few simple steps.