Articles Posted in Employment Law

The Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) rule banning most non-compete agreements continues to produce legal developments. Conflicting opinions were previously issued by a court in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas and by a court in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. In Ryan LLC v. FTC, Case…

It is important for every business to take extensive efforts to protect their trade secrets and limit their disclosure to persons with subject to comprehensive confidentiality agreements. Often, trade secret misappropriation occurs when a business shares its trade secrets with an outside vendor. This is exactly what a plaintiff claims to have happened in Ecolab,…

Under Florida law, the tort of abuse of process involves the use of criminal or civil legal process against another primarily to accomplish a purpose for which it was not designed. Florida’s Third District Court of Appeal in Cline v. Flagler Sales Corp., 207 So.2d 709 (Fla. 3d DCA 1968), discussed the elements abuse of…

Developments regarding the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) prohibition of non-compete agreements continue. Recently, a court in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania denied a motion for preliminary injunction to prevent enforcement of the ban in ATS Tree Services, LLC v. FTC, Case No. 2:24-CV-01743, 2024 WL 3511630 (E.D. Pa., July 23, 2024). This decision conflicts with…

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) controversially issued a final rule banning most non-compete agreements. This rule severely impedes the ability of businesses to protect their legitimate business interests such as customer relationships, goodwill, confidential business information, and trade secrets. However, the FTC’s rule is facing legal challenges from different directions. Last week we wrote about…

Non-compete agreements have been a standard business practice for many years. Businesses use non-compete agreements to protect their interests like proprietary business information, trade secrets, customer, goodwill, staff, and others. However, on April 23, 2024, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) upended this long-standing business practice by issuing a rule banning most non-compete agreements. See 16…

Many business contracts contain arbitration provisions, which often creates a question as to whether the contracting parties must resolve their dispute in arbitration. Florida courts consider three elements when determining whether to enforce a contractual arbitration provision. They are (1) whether a valid written agreement to arbitrate exists; (2) whether an arbitrable issue exists; and…

A fiduciary relationship exists when an individual must act in the interests of another. Watkins v. NCNB Nat’l Bank of Fla., N.A., 622 So.2d 1063 (Fla. 3rd DCA 1993) (“To establish a fiduciary relationship, a party must allege some degree of dependency on one side and some degree of undertaking on the other side to…

Florida law protects employers and similarly situated persons from unlawful competition. But every competitive act does not qualify as an unlawful competitive act. White v. Mederi Caretenders Visiting Services of Se. Florida, LLC, 226 So. 3d 774 (Fla. 2017) (“Section 542.335 does not protect covenants ‘whose sole purpose is to prevent competition per se’ because…

We previously wrote about two potential laws that might limit enforceability of non-compete agreements. The first law is a proposed Florida statute that would constrain or prohibit restrictive covenants for certain medical professionals. The second law is a Federal Trade Commission rule that would ban most non-compete agreements as unfair competition. Congress is proposing a…