In January 2023, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) proposed a rule generally prohibiting employers from imposing noncompetes on their workers. In the following year and change, the federal agency received more than 26,000 comments on the proposed rule, with over 25,000 comments supporting the FTC’s proposed ban on noncompetes. Yesterday,…
Yesterday, the Federal Trade Commission announced that it would hold a “special open Commission meeting” on April 23 to vote on whether to issue a proposed final rule that would prevent most employers from enforcing noncompetes against workers. In January 2023, the FTC proposed a rule generally prohibiting employers from…
Well, I don’t know if it’s the worst, but getting sentenced to 24 months in prison for a network intrusion and making false statements to a government agency sounds pretty bad. I was reading about this situation last night, and it sounded like something I would have blogged about before.…
In June, the New York Senate approved this bill prohibiting noncompetition agreements and certain restrictive covenants. I wrote that the days of noncompetition agreements in New York “are as limited as the Knicks’ chances of winning another NBA title.” Oops. There are multiple reports, among them this one from Judy Greenwald…
Ready. Fire. Aim. That’s often the approach companies take when they learn that a former employee with restrictive covenants like a noncompetition or nonsolicitation agreement has gone to work for a direct competitor. Many rush into court demanding that a judge enter a temporary restraining order or preliminary injunction…
In January, the Federal Trade Commission proposed eradicating most non-competition agreements. Last month, while the National Labor Relations Board doubled down on efforts to eliminate these restrictive covenants, the State of Minnesota voted to eliminate them starting in July. Now New York is poised to become the fifth state to…
Yesterday, National Labor Relations Board General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo issued a memo claiming that the “proffer, maintenance, and enforcement non-compete provisions in employment contracts and severance agreements violate the National Labor Relations Act except in limited circumstances.” Other labor and employment lawyers may forebode the end for most non-competes. Me?…
Many courts are generally reluctant to enforce noncompetes. And sometimes employers make their tasks even easier. For example, I read a state appellate court decision last night in which a company tried to enforce a three-year, thirty-mile noncompete against its former nurse practitioner that would prevent her from “provide[ing]…
As we wait patiently for the comment period on the Federal Trade Commission’s proposal to ban employers from imposing non-competes to close next month, I’m here to tell you now that your business’s non-competition agreements may be dead on arrival anyway. I’ll explain why. Most states that greenlight non-competition agreements do so with…
On Monday, the Federal Trade Commission delayed any potential implementation of its proposal to ban employers from imposing noncompetes on their workers by extending the public comment period. With the extension, the FTC will now accept comments on the proposed rule until April 19. The deadline was March 20. The…