• Catoblepas@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    6 months ago

    Weren’t noncompete agreements essentially unenforceable before this because of court rulings? Forcing employers to notify employees of this is definitely good, though.

    • issastrayngewerldkbin@kbin.social
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      6 months ago

      Unfortunately no. There are people being sued today for violating non compete clauses by their employers. Particularly in the healthcare industry.

      • Catoblepas@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        6 months ago

        Jesus, real love for essential workers there. I might be confusing it with district court rulings, either way I’m glad it’s getting addressed!

    • collapse_already@lemmy.ml
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      6 months ago

      Prior to this, the restrictions on non-competes varied by jurisdiction. Many were similar to Texas:

      Under Texas law noncompete agreements can be enforceable if:

      1. The noncompete provision is part of an otherwise enforceable agreement.
      2. The non-compete requirement is supported by valid consideration (consideration meaning something of value provided to the employee).
      3. The non-compete requirement is reasonable in geographic scope, timeframe, and activities being restrained.

      The factors were issues for a jury. Even with this change from the FTC, I expect companies will still be able to pursue prohibitively expensive litigation against former employees for things like theft of trade secrets. Even a bogus claim can cost many thousands of dollars to defend even if it is meritless.