Monthly Archives: February 2013

10 Important Pieces of Noncompete, Trade Secret, and Computer Fraud News

During this past fall and much of the winter, I was serving as a Special Assistant District Attorney in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, which didn’t give me much time to blog. So, to steal a technique that John Marsh uses every week to supplement his excellent posts on the Trade Secret Litigator blog, here are some short discussions of interesting cases and articles I came across over the past few months.… More

Text of New Noncompete Bill Now Available

The new noncompete bill discussed in my last post is now available here. As expected, it is substantially shorter and simpler than the previous proposal.  Among other things, it dispenses with a pre-hire notice requirement, garden leave, and attorneys’ fees shifting for unreasonable restrictions. Here are the salient features of the new bill:

  • A noncompete of up to six months is presumptively reasonable in duration. …
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2013 Noncompete Reform Effort Will Focus on Durational Limits

The Massachusetts legislature has begun a new, two-year session, and with it comes a pared-down approach to reforming the law of noncompetition agreements in the Commonwealth.  The two principal sponsors of past reform legislation, Senator (previously Rep.) Will Brownsberger and Rep. Lori Erhlich, explained in a recent Boston Business Journal piece that they are introducing a new bill intended to address objections from smaller businesses about attorney’s fees shifting provisions in the previous bill. … More