New York partner John Siegal was quoted in a December 11 New York Law Journal article, "As Economy Falters, More Employers Sue To Enforce Noncompetition Agreements."
The focus of the article is the increasing willingness of companies, including "industry titans," driven by rough economic times and a deepening interest in protecting proprietary information, to litigate over noncompete agreements. Siegal, co-chair of the firm's national noncompete and trade secrets practice group, called such activity "rampant."
According to the article, to avoid litigation, some employers are opting for "notice provisions" under which employees are required to give up to 12 months notice before quitting and going to work for a competitor.
Siegal said notice provisions, "reflect the commercial reality—or at least the commercial reality of the last three months—that people resign from one firm and go to another." Since the concept is fairly new in the United States, "as a result, there's not a lot of case law on this. But they tend to be more enforceable, because they are viewed as a little less strict than a noncompete agreement," Siegal added.