391–400 of 530 posts
Do you folks think this is going to just sail right through? Isn’t it premature to get excited before the proverbial ink is dry? I’m very much in favor of a total ban of noncompete agreements. That said, it seems like all the parties that stand to benefit from them will fight tooth and nail to see this doesn’t come to pass. Thoughts?
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Doesn't this mean the end of 'at-will' for anyone that a company wants to cover with a non-compete? At present a company can have their cake and eat it, giving you one day notice of end of employment but then enforcing a non-compete for x months. If this survives the Supreme Court, wouldn't a company would have to put in your employment contract that you/they must give x months notice to end employment if they wanted…
The gardening leave still works as long as it's beneficial to both parties. The employee gets an effective long, paid holiday and the company gets a non-complete equivalent. Now they have to really ensure that pay is worth more than changing the employer though. It's less "end of at-will" and more "if you want effective non-competes, it's going to cost you".
I think you're right that negotiated gardening leave will happen but I can also see companies baking in the gardening leave at the start of employment (so no longer at will) as being cheaper.
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Which would be great. These agencies and bureaus have grown to an enormous scope, completely without the consent of the governed. Doesn't sound like a republic to me.
It would be catastrophic, because Congress as it stands is utterly incapable of legislating. This is why the little stuff gets delegated to unilateral decision-making withing the executive branch: If making new rules was left to congress, they could never keep up. The world moves fast, congress moves slow. Instead, they delegate powers to agencies that can make rules within some tight purview and pursuant to some def…
That is one theory; another is that they don't legislate because they have no need to -- because the bureaucracy handles everything.
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The gardening leave still works as long as it's beneficial to both parties. The employee gets an effective long, paid holiday and the company gets a non-complete equivalent. Now they have to really ensure that pay is worth more than changing the employer though. It's less "end of at-will" and more "if you want effective non-competes, it's going to cost you".
Or the employee agreement you sign includes a notice period of 6 months from either side. I think you're right that negotiated gardening leave will happen but I can also see companies baking in the gardening leave at the start of employment (so no longer at will) as being cheaper.
Those are illegal in at-will states.
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In theory? Yes. In practice? No. For a lot of industries 20 years is an awfully long time to the point of complete irrelevance - and that "detailed information" is often vague enough to be unusable. Combine that with an overly-broad range of patent-able things and an overworked USPTO granting clearly invalid patents, and in practice (at least in the tech/software world) it's doing more harm than good. Patents are no…
Patents are no longer about protecting R&D investments. Patents are always the tool of the moneyed and the lawyered, which is not the same thing as protecting R&D investment. There are exception, such as the guy who spent 12 years suing car companies over the windshield wiper, but that actually proves the rule because of time spent. It even apparently cause his marriage to break down. [1] 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/…
> Kearns sought $395 million in damages. He turned down a $30 million settlement offer in 1990 and took it to the jury, which awarded him $5.2 million; Ford agreed to pay $10.2 million rather than face another round of litigation.
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I'm not sure that I understand. What does it mean for a noncompete to apply only to base compensation? Is the idea that if you join a competing company within X months of leaving your old company, you need to repay your base salary to the old company?
It means that GP was paid their salary for the non-compete time. In finance it is common for total compensation to be the salary plus a "bonus" of 100% of salary in normal years + any performance bonus. This means that if you had a non-compete in the finance industry and you left your employer for a competitor, then your previous employer could pay you your salary (meaning 50% of your usual compensation) to not work…
> In finance
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Apple did not invent the smart phone. The invented several features that make them useful (even their version one lacked apps), but others made smart phones before them. What Apple really did was make them useful by eliminating several of the things that made them annoying not not useful before.
> What Apple really did was make them useful by eliminating several of the things that made them annoying not not useful before. that’s literally every patentable invention ever, though. Remington didn’t invent the hunting rifle… they didn’t even invent the first self-loading or lever action rifle, probably. “removing the annoyances and downsides that make a previous approach infeasible or impractical” is more charit…
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> "same total annual compensation and benefits" This would be a game changer. My experience with garden leaves was that the base salary remained but since the bonus and benefits were gone, the total comp was severely affected
Sure, but to some degree bonuses are completely discretionary. A very bad year at some shops or on some desks could land you with a 0 bonus, although when that happens expect everyone to start looking for other jobs.
This seems incredibly important. I know non-compete rules personally held me back at a previous tech job. I'm interested to see how this hits finance firms – I know people who were forced to take a year off between jobs (although they were compensated the whole time). Always thought that would be a pretty sweet deal.
I was denied a job I was well qualified for because, (paraphrased, besides the quoted part): Our CEO and your CEO have a "gentleman's agreement" not to hire people that work at eachother's company. I have no idea why the recruiter was willing to put this in writing, and thankfully, I was able to find other work instead. I know it's not a non-compete, but there are other ways that companies can illegally form cartels…
You passed on a juicy class action lawsuit.
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Chances are extremely high that the current Supreme Court nullifies or greatly restricts Chevron. These kind of announcements are fuel for the fire and are likely to accelerate its demise. They will kill this faster than they killed the COVID vaccine mandate. Govt. agencies can’t make laws, even if we may agree with them (I actually do in this case). However this isn’t the role of an unelected government agency.
> Govt. agencies can’t make laws This is an unfortunately common response that often misses the point: U.S. government agencies do indeed have the power to make decisions with the force of law. Rule-making is a valid authority (subject to legal review of course)