In a recent matter before the Arnhem-Leeuwarden Appellate Court, an employer in the Netherlands attempted to hold a former employee to his non-compete clause.
The U.S. Department of Justice, Federal Trade Commission, and now state attorneys general, have set their sights on staffing companies in their evolving efforts to examine labor markets through an antitrust lens.
2023 was an active year in the world of unfair competition and trade secrets law, with employers’ use of restrictive covenant agreements coming under assault at the FTC and NLRB, as well as in multiple state legislatures.
On May 10, 2023, the UK government announced its intention to limit the duration of non-compete restrictions in employment contracts to three months. To date, there is still no sign of the draft legislation that will introduce this new three-month limit.
The federal government, states, counties, and cities were active again this year passing workplace legislation intended for the most part to protect employees, creating new compliance obligations for employers.
The U.S. is not the only country currently debating reform to the law on non-competes. Notably, the UK Government has announced legislation that would limit the duration of non-competes to a period of three months after the termination of employment.
On September 6, 2023, the Georgia Supreme Court reaffirmed that Georgia courts must first determine whether a restrictive covenant is enforceable under Georgia law before applying a foreign choice-of-law provision.
A recent NLRB complaint has clarified that it is the NLRB General Counsel’s opinion that employee and customer non-solicitation agreements violate the NLRA.
