Ninth Circuit Puts California’s Captive Audience Ban on Ice (US)

For more than 75 years, employers were allowed to call employees into a meeting on company time and explain why they thought a union wasn’t a good idea. These “captive audience” meetings had been legal since the National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB) 1948 decision in Babcock & Wilcox, as long as the employer didn’t threaten, coerce, or make promises. In recent years, that consensus began to come apart. Oregon was the first state to ban mandatory meetings on union and political topics, and over the last few years a wave of states followed, including Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Minnesota, New York, Vermont, Washington, and California. By one recent count, at least 13 states now have these laws on the books. In November 2024, the NLRB stepped in as well. In Amazon.com Services LLC, the Board’s then-Democratic majority overruled Babcock & Wilcox and held that requiring attendance at these meetings violates federal labor law. We covered the Illinois law, the California law, and the NLRB’s decision in earlier posts (see here, here, and here).

US State Law Roundup

By Shennan Harris and Gabrielle Martin on October 29, 2026 Posted in Compliance, Employment Law, General, Legislation, State Law Updates

State and local legislatures were active in passing employment laws and ordinances concerning topics such as artificial intelligence, paid leave, and hiring practices, to name a few. As always, minimum wages continue to increase in many jurisdictions and various posters have been updated.

Our team will continue to monitor these and other state employment law developments. If you have questions or need guidance, please reach out to your SPB contact for more information or assistance with compliance.

Introducing HR Radar: Need-to-know employment law developments right at your fingertips

By Marga Caproni on October 28, 2026 Posted in General, Technology

For organisations operating across multiple jurisdictions, keeping track of employment law developments is increasingly challenging. Obligations are multiplying, and HR and legal teams are expected to respond to developments before they create legal, operational or reputational risks.

The challenge is often not a lack of information, but identifying which developments genuinely require action and ensuring the right people know about them at the right time.

That is where HR Radar comes in.

The Noncompete Debate Is Missing the Bigger Picture (US)

By Jill Kirila on October 26, 2026 Posted in Employment Agreements, Employment Law, General, Non-compete agreements, Restrictive Covenants, Trade Secrets

Over the past few years, I’ve had countless conversations with employers about noncompetes. Some are wondering whether their agreements are still enforceable. Others are trying to navigate a patchwork of state laws or make sense of the latest legal developments. It’s not hard to see why.

The attempted nationwide ban on noncompetes by the FTC Non-Compete Rule generated headlines across the country before it was ultimately set aside by a federal court, fundamentally changing the conversation around restrictive covenants. But in many of the conversations I’m having with clients, I find myself steering them toward a different question: What are you doing to protect your business if the noncompete isn’t there?

The end of the global employment playbook?

By Squire Patton Boggs on October 22, 2026 Posted in Employment Law

One of the most thought-provoking discussions at the recent International Employment Lawyer (IEL) Global Summit in New York was Two Worlds of Work: Global Trends vs US Direction of Travel, a session that explored an increasingly pressing challenge for multinational organisations – how to maintain a coherent workforce strategy when employment laws are moving in very different directions across the world.

The panel session was chaired by Miriam Lampert, Partner and brought together perspectives from Kathleen McAchran (Sonos), Joanna Chen (TikTok) and Employment Partners from Brazil, UAE and India – Patricia Barboza, Luke Tapp and Apeksha Mattoo.

All or Nothing? Second Circuit Clarifies Scope of Sexual Harassment Arbitration Law (US)

By Lauren Herz and Scott Held on October 21, 2026 Posted in Arbitration, EFAA, Employment Agreements, Employment Law, Litigation, Recent Cases, Sexual Harassment

A recent decision by the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit clarified the reach of the Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act (“EFAA”), with significant implications for employers in New York, Connecticut, and Vermont seeking to enforce arbitration agreements.

On September 30, 2026, in Diaz-Roa v. Hermes Law, P.C.,[i], the Second Circuit held that when an employee properly invokes the EFAA, a pre-dispute arbitration agreement is unenforceable as to the entire lawsuit, not just the sexual harassment or sexual assault claims. That means other claims brought in the same lawsuit – even claims entirely unrelated to sexual harassment or sexual assault – must also proceed in court rather than arbitration.

Whistleblower bounties: is the UK joining the American gold rush?

By Laura Nelson and David Whincup on October 21, 2026 Posted in Workplace Culture

For years, the UK and US have approached whistleblowing from slightly different starting points. The UK’s regime has primarily focused on preventing those who speak up from being subject to any detriment for having done so. The US has gone a step further, using financial incentives to encourage whistleblowers to bring information directly to regulators. The US has been something of a trailblazer in this regard, with only a small number of other jurisdictions (e.g. Canada/South Korea) adopting financial incentive models. Most global systems remain protection-based, rather than incentive-based, though the “tone” of the UK legislation has historically been more that whistleblowers are a necessary nuisance to be tolerated rather than a force for good to be encouraged.

Over the course of the last decade or so, UK policymakers and regulators have periodically considered but largely resisted US-style bounty schemes. As far back as 2014, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) issued a note on “Financial Incentives for Whistleblowers“, examining the proposition but ultimately rejecting it.

Time to set some ground rules – Belgium’s deadline (for now … ) for workplace investigation regulations

By Marga Caproni and Rob Hermans on October 19, 2026 Posted in Workplace Investigations

Under Belgium’s Private Investigations Act (the “PIA”), an employer may only investigate its employees if the detailed rules governing such investigations are laid down expressly and transparently in a set of internal regulations. Employers were given a transitional period of two years from the PIA’s entry into force to put these regulations in place. That period ends on 16 December 2026.

In the first two blogs in this series, we set out the scope of the PIA and how an investigation under the PIA must be conducted. In this third and final blog, we look at which employers must adopt regulations, the form these may take, what they should cover and the consequences of non-compliance. We also address the recently started political talks on possible amendments to the PIA, which, for now, do not affect the deadline.

California Court of Appeal Clarifies Liability Standard for Supervisor Harassment (US)

By Eric Witt on October 13, 2026 Posted in California, Discrimination, Harassment, Recent Cases, Sexual Harassment

On October 5, 2026, the Second Appellate District of the California Court of Appeal held in Doe v. Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., No. B344642, that an employer was not strictly liable under the California Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA) for harassment perpetrated by the plaintiff’s coworker when that coworker was a supervisor of other employees but not a supervisor of the plaintiff. In Doe, the plaintiff and several coworkers traveled to another city for client meetings. After their meetings concluded, the plaintiff and her coworkers had dinner and drinks. The plaintiff claimed that a coworker sexually assaulted her. Although the coworker admitted to a sexual encounter with the plaintiff, he claimed that it was consensual.

Internal investigations under Belgium’s Private Investigations Act: On the why and the how

By Marga Caproni and Rob Hermans on October 8, 2026 Posted in Workplace Investigations

In part one of this series, we established that the scope of the Private Investigations Act (the “PIA”) is considerably broader than one might assume: if you carry out a workplace investigation internally within a company, you are in principle caught by the stringent provisions of the PIA.

In this blog, we zoom in on the procedural requirements for an investigation.