Days ago, engineer Anthony Levandowski was indicted on criminal charges accusing him of stealing information from Google-owned Waymo and taking it to Uber. While the indictment alleges he downloaded 14,000 documents containing trade secrets before he left Google, Levandowski insists the downloads were his. An arbitration panel ordered Levandowski to pay Google $127 million. After firing Levandowski – who repeatedly asserted his constitutional right against self-incrimination before the trial – his new employer, Uber, paid $245 million to settle its own civil lawsuit with Google.  The sitting federal judge recommended a criminal probe into a possible theft – now an indictment. Everybody does it, right? Who pays the $372 million? Does Uber have to protect Levandowski? Can Levandowski claim ownership of his ideas? Can Levandowski go to jail?
Continue Reading Who Pays When Your New Employee Brings Your Competitor’s Trade Secrets?

In the summer of 2016 Stormy Sultry aka Peggy Peterson and Dennis Duck aka David Dennison engaged in some alleged hanky-panky. Wanting to nip in the bud any later stories about what happened, Duck’s agent gets Sultry to sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) in exchange for which Duck happily pays Sultry $130,000 for her silence and her agreement that any dispute over the NDA could only be pursued in a private arbitration. Agreeing that damages for any breach are not readily determinable in dollars, the NDA has a liquidated damages provision that damages are $1 million per breach. Is the NDA enforceable?
Continue Reading How to Avoid Trumping Non-Disclosure Agreements

Wanting to expand out of North Dakota before the Christmas season, Homer’s Christmas Tree Farm picked Bubba’s Christmas Farm in the Texas Panhandle. Knowing that Bubba’s employee, Skeeter Jones, was critical to Bubba’s continuing success, Homer required Skeeter to sign a new employment contract complete with non-competition and non-solicitation provisions under North Dakota law. When

For most of the late 1990s and early 2000s, it was considered to be nearly impossible to have an enforceable non-compete in Texas. After clarification by the Texas Supreme Court in 2006, non-competition agreements in Texas have found new life.

Non-competition agreements typically prevent an employee from competing with an employer after their employment ends.