Companies that employ workers in Virginia cannot enforce overly broad noncompete agreements to prevent former employees from soliciting business after leaving to work for a competitor, the Virginia Supreme Court has ruled.
The ruling, published Nov. 4, brings to a close a 2009 lawsuit that Home Paramount Pest Control filed against a former employee at its Falls Church branch who the company said illegally courted Home Paramount customers after going to work for a Springfield-based competitor, Connor’s Termite and Pest Control.
The court found that the noncompete agreement (provisions that many companies include in employment contracts to prohibit workers from soliciting clients or taking trade secrets once they’ve jumped ship to a competitor) was too broad because it sought to prevent the employee from working at an industry competitor in any capacity.
The decision “clarified the issue for lawyers and employers on what the covenants restrict and can’t restrict,” said Chuck Sickels, a partner at the Reston firm Sickels Frei Mims who represented the employee, Justin Shaffer. “What you can’t restrict is an employee going to work for a competitor in any capacity.”
Because the Virginia Supreme Court has in the past struck down noncompete agreements for similar reasons, the Home Paramount decision is not precedent-setting, said Linda Jackson, a labor and employment attorney at Venable who was not involved in the case. But it’s an important reminder for employers to make sure the noncompete agreements they want to enforce — such as those for top executives or employees who have access to trade secrets — are narrow in scope, she said.
Ex-State Dept. official joins Covington & burling
Washington’s largest law firm Covington & Burling has hired former Obama administration official Arturo Valenzuela to lead the firm’s push in Latin America.
Valenzuela, who will join Covington’s Washington office as a senior adviser for Latin America, was assistant secretary of state for western hemisphere affairs from 2009 to August 2011, during which he helped shape U.S. policy toward Canada, Argentina, Chile and other western hemisphere countries. He served during the second Clinton administration as special assistant to the president and director for inter-American affairs at the National Security Council.
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