The Illinois General Assembly recently approved House of Representatives Amendment 1 to Senate Bill (SB) 672, which would significantly reform noncompete and nonsolicitation law in Illinois. The bill will now go to Governor JB Pritzker, who is expected to sign the bill into law.
In 2016, Illinois enacted the Illinois Freedom to Work Act (IFWA). In doing so, it became one of the first states to pass legislation in response to the Obama administration’s Call to Action, which asked states to amend their restrictive covenant laws to, among other things, ban covenants not to compete for workers under a certain wage threshold.
Several amendments to the Illinois Day and Temporary Labor Services Act will become effective June 1, 2018. Staffing agencies (also known as “suppliers”) and user employers (“users”) are finding that some of the law’s requirements are not lessons in clarity.
Illinois’s Responsible Job Creation Act, which will become effective June 1, 2018, amends the Day and Temporary Labor Services Act with the goal of strengthening staffing industry regulation.
On August 19, 2016, Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner signed a bill prohibiting noncompete agreements for low-wage employees. In addition to prohibiting most private-sector employers from entering into noncompetes with their low-wage employees, the Illinois Freedom to Work Act (the Act) renders “illegal and void” any “covenant not to compete entered into between an employer and a low-wage employee” after the effective date of January 1, 2017.
Until recently, the Economic Espionage Act of 1996 (EEA) allowed for federal trade secret actions by the U.S. Department of Justice. The Defend Trade Secrets Act of 2016 (DTSA) amended the EEA to provide private litigants the right to sue (and be sued) in federal court for trade secret misappropriation. The DTSA establishes a three-year statute of limitation and provides several remedies for successful plaintiffs, including injunctive relief, compensatory damages, and attorneys’ fees.
On May 11, 2016, President Barack Obama signed into law the long-awaited Defend Trade Secrets Act of 2016 (DTSA), which is effective immediately. Three key features of the DTSA include: (1) the creation of a federal private right of action for trade secret misappropriation; (2) a provision permitting ex parte civil seizure of property necessary to prevent the propagation or dissemination of trade secrets; and (3) a requirement that employers provide notice to employees of their immunities under the DTSA for making confidential disclosures to the government, in court filings, or in connection with whistleblower retaliation claims by employees against their employers.
Two recent rulings in the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division and the Central District of Illinois, Peoria Division, have further blurred the “bright line” two-year consideration rule established by the Illinois First District Court of Appeals…
The Illinois Supreme Court’s recent refusal to review the Illinois Appellate Court’s controversial decision in Fifield v. Premier Dealer Services, Inc., No. 1-12-0327, 2013 IL App (1st) 120327 (Jun. 24, 2013) leaves employers with uncertainty about the appropriate consideration to support employee restrictive covenant agreements at hire. Fifield, redux As detailed in our July 15,
The Illinois Appellate Court’s recent opinion in Fifield v. Premier Dealer Services, Inc. takes an aggressive stance on continued employment as consideration to support enforcement of a non-competition or non-solicitation agreement.
As we previously discussed in our blog post, the “continued employment doctrine,” which is the majority view in Illinois, is that two years of continued employment after an employee enters a restrictive covenant is “substantial continued employment” that makes the agreement enforceable without any additional consideration (such as payment, promotion,…..
In this series of blog posts, we have examined the use of injunctive relief in state and federal courts in response to employees who have misappropriated confidential information and trade secrets, who have solicited clients and employees, or who have violated non-compete agreements. In our last three posts, we identified…..
This morning, the U.S. Supreme Court, in a per curiam opinion, ruled that the Oklahoma Supreme Court failed to adhere to a correct interpretation of the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA). The Court vacated a decision made by the state high court, ruling that noncompetition agreements in two employment contracts were…..
In our last two posts, we identified best practices for ensuring that a company’s house is in order, including the use of narrowly tailored restrictive covenant agreements (Part I) and adopting a company culture and behaviors that protect its information (Part II). In this, our third blog post in the…..
One of the primary reasons for using a restrictive covenant agreement is to protect a company’s confidential information and trade secrets. By implementing certain behaviors, a company can significantly enhance its chances of winning trade secret and/or confidentiality disputes later down the road. These behaviors are focused on ensuring that…..
In this series of blog posts we will examine the use of injunctive relief in state and federal courts in response to employees who have misappropriated confidential information and trade secrets, who solicit clients and employees, or who violate non-compete agreements. We will address strategic decisions that must be made…..
Following the Illinois appellate court decisions in Diederich Insurance Agency, LLC v. Smith, 952 N.E.2d 165, 169 (5th Dist. 2011) and Brown & Brown, Inc. v. Mudron, 887 N.E.2d 437, 441 (3d Dist. 2008), it is well settled in Illinois that continued employment is adequate consideration to support a restrictive…..
