Liza M. Velazquez

Aug 21, 2024 | lexology.com | Robert Atkins |Joseph J. Bial |Rebecca Coccaro |Lina Dagnew |Andrew J. Ehrlich |Reuven Falik | +19 more

A federal district court in Texas ruled on the merits that the FTC does not have statutory authority to promulgate the Non-Compete Clause Rule and that the rule is arbitrary and capricious. As a consequence, the court set aside the rule under the Administrative Procedure Act and ordered that it “shall not be enforced or otherwise take effect.” The order is nationwide in scope and not party-specific. Two other challenges to the rule are pending in other district courts.

Jul 24, 2024 | lexology.com | Robert Atkins |Joseph J. Bial |Rebecca Coccaro |Lina Dagnew |Andrew J. Ehrlich |Reuven Falik | +16 more

Current state of affairsTwo different federal district courts have now issued two different rulings in similar challenges to the same FTC Non-Compete Clause Rule. In the first, Ryan, et al. v. Federal Trade Commission, No. 24-cv-986 (N.D. Tex. July 3, 2024), the court granted plaintiffs’ motions for preliminary injunction and stayed the effective date of the rule pending a ruling on the merits. In the second, ATS Tree Services, LLC v.

Apr 24, 2024 | lexology.com | Kannon K. Shanmugam |Liza M. Velazquez |Walter Bonné |Isen Kang

On April 17, 2024, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act does not require employees to suffer a “‘significant’ employment disadvantage” in order to state a viable discrimination claim.[1] Rather, to prevail under Title VII, an employee must demonstrate “some harm respecting an identifiable term or condition of employment.”[2] This decision resolves a circuit split[3] on the standard for Title VII claims and potentially allows for more workplace...

Apr 24, 2024 | lexology.com | Robert Atkins |Joseph J. Bial |Rebecca Coccaro |Andrew Finch |Jarrett Hoffman |Brad S. Karp | +16 more

The FTC’s final non-compete clause rule would ban all new and nearly all existing employer-worker non-competes. The ban would go into effect 120 days after publication in the Federal Register. The final rule is only slightly narrower in scope than the initial proposed rule. The final rule does not ban existing non-compete agreements with “senior executives,” and it retains and expands upon an exemption for non-compete agreements related to sale of a business.

Apr 22, 2024 | news.bloomberglaw.com | Melinda Haag |Liza M. Velazquez

With last year’s surge in layoffs anticipated to linger into this year, companies that are reducing their workforce face risks of unauthorized disclosure or use of trade secrets and other valuable confidential business information. Understanding these risks is critical to mitigating them. Taking proactive measures to safeguard trade secrets and other confidential information can be an important strategy—because it’s more difficult to remedy disclosure of protected information after the fact.