Earlier this month, a group of six United States Senators made a joint request for the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to investigate the impact of non-compete agreements on workers and the U.S. economy as a whole. This action suggests that the federal non-compete reform effort is not going away.
Recent Legislative Efforts
On February 18,
Last year, Democrats in the United States Senate and House of Representatives introduced bills — S.2782 and H.R.5631 — banning non-compete agreements in the vast majority of workplaces across the country. Although those bills failed to gain traction, the authors of this Blog anticipated a renewed effort at federal non-compete reform in 2019, with Democrats
Just before midnight on July 31, 2018, the Massachusetts Legislature passed a bill regulating the use of non-compete agreements in the Commonwealth. This development is a long time coming, as the Legislature had been attempting for nearly a decade to create a non-compete law.
In an article posted on our website on August 1, 2018,
This Blog has previously covered the six non-compete bills that were introduced in the Massachusetts Legislature in 2017 (See articles dated December 27, 2017, and March 2, 2018). On April 17, 2018, the Joint Committee on Labor and Workforce Development submitted a revised bill, House Bill 4419 (“H 4419”), in place of the
In the past week, two states have made modifications to their respective non-compete laws. On March 27, 2018, Utah imposed special restrictions on the use of non-compete agreements in the broadcasting industry. One day later, Idaho modified the standard of proof that must be followed when a company seeks an injunction against a former employee
In the final month of 2017 we discussed efforts by the Massachusetts and New Jersey legislatures to limit the use of employment non-compete agreements. By the start of 2018, the spike in activity had become a trend, with Pennsylvania, New Hampshire and Vermont introducing non-compete legislation of their own.
The Massachusetts Legislature has spent the past several years seeking to regulate the use of restrictive covenant agreements in the Commonwealth. Despite repeatedly falling short in that initiative, the 2017 legislative session strongly signaled the Legislature’s enduring interest in this subject by introducing a whopping eight new competing bills.
In an article posted on our
A bill in the New Jersey Senate, Senate Bill 3518 (“SB 3518”), and an identical companion bill in the New Jersey Assembly (Assembly Bill 5261), would significantly curtail the use of non-compete agreements in New Jersey. In an article posted on our website, Cliff Atlas, Kevin Miller and Colin Thakkar analyze SB 3518 and