On October 20, 2016, the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) and the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) (collectively the “Agencies”), who jointly enforce the antitrust laws, alerted human resource (“H.R.”) professionals that they might violate […]
In my October 12, 2016 blog posting, I discussed how C&S Energy Services, Ltd. v. McCoy demonstrated that courts in Texas will enforce non-competition agreements that are reasonably limited in scope and duration. A decision in a subsequent case […]
Federal regulators have issued an advance notice of new proposed cybersecurity standards. The notice invites comment on enhanced cybersecurity standards for regulated entities with total assets of $50 billion and certain of their service providers. The […]
Not all employers need non-compete agreements. Jimmy John’s Sandwiches learned this the hard way, when some franchisees reportedly required sandwich makers or cashiers to sign non-compete agreements. These agreements kept cashiers or sandwich […]
Lots of people and companies buy old debt—for example, hedge funds, private equity firms, and even some commercial bank affiliates. Typically, this is debt that the original creditor has charged off and sold for a fraction of the legal balance. […]
The Fifth Circuit’s October 4 decision in Reyna v. International Bank of Commerce, 2016 WL 5799283, has some valuable information for employers analyzing arbitration agreements with employees or facing Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) claims. In short […]
Trade secret and noncompetition lawsuits are common in the energy industry because non-public technology and the need to protect it can be important to an energy company’s success. One example of such a lawsuit is C&J Energy Services, Ltd. v […]
Last week, shale giant Chesapeake Energy Corporation filed its Form 8-K with the SEC, revealing that it had received additional Department of Justice subpoenas “seeking information on [Chesapeake’s accounting methodology for the acquisition and classification […]
Should community and regional banks operating outside of New York care about the proposed regulation? Yes. There are at least three reasons why. The bottom line is that the proposed regulation calls for tighter cybersecurity standards and may have long […]
The new overtime regulations announced in May, which among other things raised the salary for the white collar exemptions from $23,660 to $47,476, were set to go in effect on December 1, 2016. But on Wednesday, the Republican-controlled U.S. House of […]
In Daugherty v. Convergent Outsourcing, Inc., the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals held that a collection letter that is silent as to litigation, but which offers to “settle” a time-barred debt without acknowledging that such debt is judicially unenforceable […]
Noncompliance with Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) regulations may not singularly establish a negligence per se claim, but such evidence may be relevant to proximate cause in a simple negligence action. In 2015, the Corpus Christi […]