ATS Tree Services, LLC (“ATS”) has voluntarily dismissed the lawsuit it filed in April 2024 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania challenging the Federal Trade Commission’s (“FTC”) Non-Compete Clause Rule (“the Final Rule”), which banned the use of most non-compete clauses in employment contracts.
The dismissal comes after the U.S.… Continue Reading
What’s next for employers who want to protect their businesses from competition from departing employees, including the loss of customers, employees, and confidential information? With a federal court injunction against the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) Final Rule banning noncompetes, the door is open for employers to continue using them. But companies now have time to reflect on the increasing hostility of courts and legislatures towards overly broad restrictive covenants, update their existing agreements, assess which employees ought to be subject to post-employment covenants, and determine how to best protect their trade secrets and confidential information.… Continue Reading
The SEC has begun to bring enforcement actions against companies whose employment and client agreements could appear to infringe on the right to report cases in violation of Section 21f-17(a) of the Exchange Act. On September 9, 2024, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced that it settled charges against seven public companies for more than $3 million in combined civil penalties for including language in their employment, consulting and other agreements that potentially discourages whistleblowers from reporting issues to outside authorities.… Continue Reading
On August 20, 2024, Judge Ada Brown of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas vacated the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) final Rule that the FTC enacted to ban noncompete agreements. Judge Brown held that the FTC exceeded its statutory authority and invalidated the Rule on a nationwide basis.… Continue Reading
Updated on August 17, 2024
As we previously reported, here, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) issued a Final Rule on April 23, 2024 that would prevent most employers from enforcing non-compete agreements against workers, effective September 4, 2024 (the “Rule”). As a result of a preliminary injunction entered against the Rule by a Texas federal court, employers are in limbo as to whether the Rule will impact their businesses.… Continue Reading
On May 1, 2023, the Biden Administration announced the end of COVID-19 vaccination requirements for federal employees, contractors, CMS-certified facilities, and others, because, “we are now in a different phase of our [COVID-19] response when these measures are no longer necessary.” The federal COVID-19 Public Health Emergency ended on May 11, 2023.… Continue Reading
On December 29, 2022, as part of the Fiscal Year 2023 Omnibus Spending Bill, President Biden signed into law two pieces of legislation that will benefit pregnancy and nursing mothers – the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA) and the Providing Urgent Maternal Protections for Nursing Mothers Act (PUMP for Nursing Mothers Act). … Continue Reading
For the second time in less than a week, the National Labor Relations Board has thrown out a Trump-era standard and reinstated Obama-era rules favorable to labor unions. In Bexar County Performing Arts Center Foundation, 16-CA-193636 (“Bexar County II“), the Board restricted a business owner’s ability to prohibit off-duty contract workers from conducting labor protests on its property.… Continue Reading
Employers that violate the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) will have to pay workers additional damages under a recently issued precedential decision from the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB or Board).
In Thryv, Inc., the NLRB ruled 3-2 that the Board’s standard remedy for make-whole relief should include consequential damages. The Board now will “expressly order that the respondent compensate affected employees for all direct or foreseeable pecuniary harms suffered as a result of the respondent’s unfair labor practice” to more fully realize the concept of “make-whole relief” under Section 10(c) of the NLRA. … Continue Reading
The National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB”) has issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (“NPRM”) inviting public comment on a proposed rule that would rescind and replace an April 2020 rule which currently governs: 1) the filing and processing of petitions for a Board-conducted representation election while unfair labor practice charges are pending; and 2) the filing and processing of petitions following an employer’s voluntary recognition of a union as the majority-supported collective bargaining representative.… Continue Reading