Non-Compete Agreement / Covenant Not to Compete

Uber Faces Potential Sanctions For Allegedly Withholding Evidence in Waymo Trade Secret Theft Trial

December 9, 2017 | Peter S. Lubin and Patrick Austermuehle

The battle to be the first self-driving car company has a new twist.

Waymo’s lawsuit against Uber for allegedly stealing trade secrets pertaining to its self-driving technology was supposed to go to trial earlier this month, but has been delayed as a result of new evidence against Uber.

While the two ride-hailing companies were preparing their cases and getting ready to argue their sides before a jury, Judge William Alsup had ordered an investigation into Uber by the Department of Justice (DOJ) – an investigation which recently turned up a letter that has the potential to do serious damage to Uber’s case.

The letter was written by an attorney representing Richard Jacobs, who used to work for Uber as part of their Marketplace Analytics (MA) team. According to the letter, which Jacobs approved at the time, it was sent, Uber allegedly used its MA team for the sole purpose of stealing trade secrets from Waymo, and possibly other competitors as well.

The DOJ also found that Uber had actively taken steps to hide this information from the court and other legal professionals.

The letter was part of a lawsuit between Jacobs and Uber, which has since been settled. When questioned about the letter on the stand, Jacobs denied parts of it, saying he reviewed the letter in haste when he was on vacation. Jacobs denied that Uber’s MA group existed in order to steal trade secrets, or that Waymo was a target, but he did confirm that Uber took steps to protect sensitive information and eliminate the possibility of a paper trail that might work against them later. Continue reading ›

Courts in England Interpret Non-Compete Clauses Using Similar Analysis to U.S. Courts

November 1, 2017 | Peter S. Lubin and Patrick Austermuehle

An interesting recent employment law case in the United Kingdom illustrates why it is crucial for businesses to carefully draft non-compete agreements. In England as in the United States former employees can use overbroad wording to invalidate the entire covenant and circumvent otherwise valid provisions.

Mary-Caroline T. was an executive search agent and partner at Egon Zehnder Ltd. in the U.K., eventually rising to become co-global head of the financial services group. Her employment agreement provided that she not be “engaged, concerned with or interested in” a competing business of a similar nature for six months following separation from the company. The restriction was not limited geographically. Continue reading ›

To Compete or Not to Compete in Agreements?: That is the Question — Chicago and Naperville Non-Compete Agreement Attorneys

September 30, 2017 | Peter S. Lubin and Patrick Austermuehle

All contracts are subject to scrutiny before the law, especially when a dispute arises. Employment-employer disputes are no exception. Federal and state‑specific restrictions are
now facing employers who utilize non‑compete agreements and such agreements are able to be stricken for unrelated employment issues. This is since the Appellate Division of the New
Jersey Superior Court has provided a warning to an employer had no ability to prevent its former employee from working for its direct client despite the existence of a non‑compete
agreement expressly covering that client. This was of particular concern since the employee was not paid properly by the employer during her training period. It was because the
employment and non‑compete “agreements violated federal law, they were void and unenforceable.”

This brings to light notions such as the importance of fair and just contracts, as well as, the unconscionability. If ever a contract has an abuse of power or is in favor of one party over the
other, it will violate the law. The employers must take this into consideration when drafting terms and have them reviewed by attorneys who are familiar with restrictive covenants within
the scope of employment law. Continue reading ›

Trunk Club Competing For Employees, Not Customers — Naperville Non-Compete Agreement and Non-Solicitation Agreement Attorneys

September 12, 2017 | Peter S. Lubin and Patrick Austermuehle

It’s hard to see how a children’s clothing store could be a competitor for a brand that sells high-end men’s and women’s clothing. But that’s allegedly what Trunk Club told a former employee who wanted to go to work for Mac & Mia, which Trunk Club said would be in violations of the non-compete agreement she had signed with them.

A subsidiary of Nordstrom’s, Trunk Club is a personal styling service for men and women, while Mac & Mia uses personal stylists to help sell children’s clothing. Molly Dowell worked as a personal stylist at Trunk Club for about six months before leaving, citing concerns about the future of the company. Nordstrom’s recently reduced Trunk Club’s value to half of what the clothing giant paid for the personal styling company, saying it had not been performing as well as Nordstrom’s had hoped it would. That, combined with the recent departure of Trunk Club’s CEO, suggests Dowell’s concerns for the company may have been well-founded. Continue reading ›

Linkedin Posting Doesn’t Violate Non-Compete Agreement — Chicago Non-Compete Agreement Lawyers Near Oak Brook and Naperville

September 4, 2017 | Peter S. Lubin and Patrick Austermuehle

Can a former employee breach a nonsolicitation agreement by posting his new job on his Facebook page or inviting former colleagues to connect with him on LinkedIn? It turns out that it depends on the nature of the communication. An Illinois appellate court recently considered the role social media plays in the world of corporate non-compete agreements.

Gregory G. was a branch sales manager in the Warwick, Rhode Island, office of Bankers Life, an Illinois company that sells insurance and financial products to seniors. In 2006 Gregory signed a non-compete agreement that barred him from soliciting any employee or client of that office for two years after his employment ended. Gregory left Bankers Life in 2015 and later joined its competitor, American Senior Benefits LLC, as a senior vice president.

In a breach of contract complaint, Bankers Life alleged that Gregory attempted to recruit employees from its Warwick office by sending LinkedIn invitations to three former co-workers, who would be able to see a job posting for his new employer on his LinkedIn profile page. Continue reading ›

Idaho’s New Non-Compete Agreement Law May Stifle Boise’s Thriving High Tech Industry — Chicago Non-Compete Agreement Attorneys Near Hinsdale and LaGrange

August 7, 2017 | Peter S. Lubin and Patrick Austermuehle

Start-ups (specifically tech start-ups) generally don’t have much need for inexperienced or untrained students who just graduated and are now entering the workforce. Instead, they have a greater need of well-trained, knowledgeable, experienced workers to help them build their new venture into a profitable business. But they’re finding it increasingly difficult to hire those people in states that protect non-compete agreements.

Experts say that the rise of Silicon Valley as the heart of the technology world is directly related to California’s refusal to enforce any non-compete agreements whatsoever.

A non-compete agreement is part of an employment contract that prevents a worker from leaving their employer to work for a competitor. There’s usually a geographical limit of a few miles and a time limit around six months to a year, but companies are increasingly leaving those limitations behind and simply preventing their workers from ever working for any competitor.

The practice started with high-level executives who could potentially take sensitive trade secrets directly to a competitor, thereby ruining their former employer’s prospects. But more and more companies have been expanding their use of non-competes to cover all their employees – from those earning minimum wage, all the way to the top of the corporation.

Employee advocacy groups have fought hard against the use and enforcement of non-compete agreements and Big Business has fought just as hard in their favor. Large corporations trying to hold onto their employees at any cost have started looking for ways to punish their employees for leaving, rather than enticing them to stay. Continue reading ›

Article on “Other Perspectives on Trends in Employee Noncompetition Agreements” Gives Excellent Over View of Non-Compete Agreement Law in Various States — Best Naperville and Chicago Non-Compete Agreement Lawyers

July 27, 2017 | Peter S. Lubin and Patrick Austermuehle

This Article gives an excellent over view of non-compete agreement law in various states. It summarizes the law for these agreements in the following states: Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Illinois, Missouri and New York. It provides a number of insightful tips on how courts are likely to view non-compete agreements depending on the facts of the case. For instance, it concludes, in our opinion accurately, that Illinois courts will likely be more likely to enforce non-compete agreements if the employee has engaged in some sort of wrongful behavior such as misappropriating confidential information or starting the competing business using the employer’s computers and other resources.

With regard the to Illinois the article states:

Illinois courts generally disfavor employer-employee restrictive covenants. Consequently, courts look for reasons not to enforce restrictive covenants and the fact that an employee is “low level” often creates an equitable reason for the court to refuse to enforce restrictive covenants. However, bad conduct by a former employee, whether by taking confidential information or poaching former customers of the former employer, often will overcome a court’s reluctance to enforce a restrictive covenant against a low-level employee.

Historically, Illinois courts only enforced such restrictive covenants if the employer could demonstrate it had a legitimate protectable interest. Courts defined legitimate protectable interest to include “near permanent customer relationships” or confidential information. In 2011, the Illinois Supreme Court revisited this issue in Reliable Fire Equipment v. Arredondo, holding that an employer must demonstrate both a legitimate protectable interest and the reasonableness of the scope (activity, time and geographic). However, the Reliable Fire court also held that an employer could establish a legitimate protectable interest in ways other than confidential information or long-standing customer relationships, creating further confusion in the Illinois legal landscape. This ruling required trial courts faced with a motion for temporary restraining order seeking to restrain a former employee from competing to focus on what interest an employer is seeking to protect and whether that interest is sufficiently clear at a preliminary stage such that a TRO is justified. Generally, Illinois courts have looked to two key issues in recent years—has the former employee “taken” confidential information and is the former employee using such confidential information to pursue his former employer’s clients. If the answer to either of these questions is yes, Illinois courts are likely to enforce a restrictive covenant.

An interesting dilemma has arisen in the last four years since the Illinois Appellate Court decided Fifield v. Premier Dealers Services. The Fifield court held that at-will employment is inadequate consideration to support restrictive covenants until at least two years of at-will employment have passed since the agreement was put in effect. This creates another hurdle for enforcing restrictive covenants against lower-level employees. Most low-level employees are employees at will. Consequently, for an employer to be confident that its restrictive covenants will not fail for lack of consideration, some unrestricted consideration (e.g., a signing bonus) must be provided at the outset of the employment relationship.

Court Finds That Non-Compete Agreement Violates FLSA — Chicago Employment Discrimination Lawyers — Chicago Restrictive Covenant Attorneys Near Oak Brook

June 28, 2017 | Peter S. Lubin and Patrick Austermuehle

Minteq International, Inc. supplies materials to steel-makers. Minteq’s employees are represented by the engineers’ union of the AFL-CIO and covered by a collective bargaining agreement (CBA). In 2012, without bargaining or even notifying the union, the company began requiring new employees to sign noncompete and confidentiality agreements (NCCA) which barred employees from working for Minteq’s competitors for 18 months following their employment and disclosing confidential or proprietary information. They also included nonsolicitation and at-will employment clauses.

In 2014, the union filed an unfair labor practice charge against Minteq. The National Labor Relations Board found that Minteq violated the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) by failing to afford the employees’ union notice or an opportunity to bargain over Minteq’s unilateral implementation of the NCCA. In a recent ruling, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit upheld the Board’s findings (Minteq International Inc., et al., v. Nat’l Labor Relations Board, No. 16-1276 (D.C. Cir. 2017)).

NLRB held that the noncompete agreement was a mandatory subject of bargaining not covered by the CBA. FLSA requires parties to bargain in good faith regarding “wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment.” As such, Minteq’s noncompete/confidentiality agreement was a mandatory subject of bargaining because it directly “settle[s] an aspect of the relationship between the employer and the employees.” (First Nat’l Maint. Corp. v. NLRB, 452 U.S. 666 (1981)). Continue reading ›

Waymo Seeks Injunction for Alleged Trade Secret Theft of Google Self-Driving Secrets

June 8, 2017 | Peter S. Lubin and Patrick Austermuehle

In Silicon Valley, the heart of the technology industry, a company’s greatest asset is its talent. Their brains and the information they have access to are priceless, which is why, for many tech companies, it is imperative for them not to allow their employees to take such invaluable information directly to a competitor. It’s also why Waymo, Google’s self-driving car company, is suing Uber and one of Google’s former employees for allegedly stealing trade secrets.

According to Waymo, Anthony Levandowski, who was working on Google’s self-driving vehicle technology, left the company last year after allegedly stealing 14,000 documents containing trade secrets. Levandowski then started his own self-driving truck company, called Otto, which he sold to Uber earlier this year. Levandowski is now working as the head of Uber’s self-driving department, although Uber and Levandowski claim their technology bears no resemblance to Waymo’s self-driving technology. Continue reading ›

Global Economy Meets Geography Limit in Non-Compete Agreement — Best Naperville and Wheaton Non-Compete Agreement Lawyer

June 1, 2017 | Peter S. Lubin and Patrick Austermuehle

As our economy continues to expand all over the country and the globe, it forces us to reconsider some of the ways in which we do business.

For example, when companies started including non-compete agreements in their contracts with their employees, the federal and state governments allowed it – as long as the non-compete agreements met certain requirements. Chief among those requirements was a time limit and a geographical limit. Ideally, non-compete agreements should protect the legitimate business interests of the company (by making sure employees don’t go to a direct competitor with trade secrets), without severely restricting further employment opportunities for the worker.

But as companies continue to grow and expand into national and international markets, their competitors can reasonably be considered to be operating just about everywhere. That’s the case Horizon Health Corp. is making in its lawsuit against Acadia Healthcare Co. Inc. and the individual Acadia employees who were allegedly bound by a non-compete agreement when they were working for Horizon.

The contract prohibited the employees from going to work for another “psychiatric management company,” for one year after termination of their employment with Horizon, but there was no geographic limit to the non-compete agreement. Continue reading ›