Employee Mobility & Trade Secrets
- Represented a clinical lab in the successful resolution of trade secret and breach of duty claims against ex-employees.
- Represented a digital solutions company in connection with non-compete related employment disputes with its former employees and its competitor. Mintz successfully acquired first a temporary restraining order and then a preliminary injunction order to enforce the confidentiality, non-solicitation, and noncompetition provisions in the employee agreements those employees had entered with the company.
- Successfully defeated the motion for a Temporary Restraining Order against our client and its new employee by persuading the court that the employee, while performing a similar function at her former employer, did not have access to trade secret information nor possessed a customer facing role.
- Successfully defended a consulting firm, its principal owner, and a key employee in a suit brought against them by the employee's former employer in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, alleging that our clients violated various non-compete, non-solicit and other obligations and stole trade secrets.
- Defended a non-compete and other trade secret allegations against various former employees and shareholders of a company acquired by our client, a global IT services provider.
- Represented a technology company in connection with a motion to dismiss the portion of the complaint filed by the plaintiff alleging breach of the executive’s noncompetition agreement. The court dismissed the complaint based on the emerging “material change” under Massachusetts common law.
- Represented a company that develops irrigation system controllers and its employee in a non-compete actions in California and Pennsylvania filed by a competitor. After a two-day mini-trial on the jurisdictional and temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction motions, which included opening and closing arguments and the examination of witnesses, the Court granted our client's motion to dismiss finding it lacked jurisdiction over our client and denied the competitor's motion for temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction. These victories lead the parties to, in effect, a walk-away settlement and the dismissal of the respective California and Pennsylvania actions.
- Represented a financial services firm in the successful resolution of trade secret claims against a former employee.
- Represented a San Diego-based medical device company in an arbitration brought by a direct competitor alleging that the company's employment of the direct competitor’s former executive violated the executive’s two year non-compete agreement. Obtained a verdict in the arbitration that included a reduction in the executive’s non-compete agreement to just one year, which allowed for the executive to begin work shortly after the completion of the arbitration.
Case Study
Attorneys Andrew Bernstein and Alex Song represented the CEO and senior officers of a global data and technology company in a $3.3B investment transaction involving negotiations with two private equity funds.
Case Study
Mintz successfully defended HR Outsourcing, Inc. in a case brought under the Defend Trade Secrets Act shortly after the statute became effective in May 2016. At the outset of the case, Mintz attorneys raised defects in the plaintiff’s pleading.