New York Law Journal: New York Statute Bars Media Industry Noncompetes
New York partner John Siegal authored an article which was published in the August 21 edition of the New York Law Journal titled, "New York Statute Bars Media Industry Noncompetes."
According to Siegal, Co-Chair of the firm's national Noncompete and Trade Secrets team, "For the first time, New York now has a statute regulating the use of noncompete provisions in employment agreements . . . the 'Broadcast Employees Freedom to Work Act' . . . prohibits a broadly defined group of media industry employers from requiring or seeking to enforce postemployment noncompetes affecting all but 'management employees.'"
Siegal continues: "For an entire cluster of industries central to New York's economy, this new law removes employment relations from the state's elaborate and long-standing common law governing postemployment restrictive covenants. It will fundamentally alter some aspects of the negotiation of talent contracts in certain of the New York-based media industries and it will likely also give birth to an entirely new set of issues to be litigated to sort out the industry and employee scope of this new prohibition."
Siegal's article goes on to detail what the new law provides, including to which employers and employees it applies, and the issues which may arise based on those provisions. However, "as broad and encompassing as the new law is, it leaves affected media industry employers with a broad range of tools that can be used to regulate the postemployment transitions and activities of its employees," according to Siegal, which the article goes on to explain.
Siegal concludes: "The Broadcast Employees Freedom to Work Act ushers in an entire new era of employment relations and contract negotiations in the New York-based media industries. Companies will be required to revisit and rewrite their forms of agreements in light of this new law. Employers, talent, and nonmanagement employees—and the myriad business affairs personnel, agents, lawyers and representatives who do their bidding—will all be negotiating on a new playing field. New arrangements, new disputes and a great deal of uncertainty will be the inevitable result in the months and years to come as the industries sort out the meaning of this new law."