On February 7, 2022, the U.S. House of Representatives passed, and on February 10, the U.S. Senate approved, a bill (the Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act (Act)) that would amend the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) so as to invalidate clauses in employment agreements requiring employees to arbitrate claims of sexual … Continue Reading
Back in June Acas produced a report on the “fire and re-hire” practices used by some employers to make detrimental changes to employees’ terms and conditions of employment. In essence, the employee is given notice of dismissal from his old contract but offered immediate reinstatement on a new one which incorporates the changes the employer wanted … Continue Reading
Squire Patton Boggs Summer Associate Gabrielle Martin summarizes substantial changes to Illinois’ Freedom to Work Act included in recently-passed legislation which will impose significant new requirements and limitations on the use of non-competition and non-solicitation covenants in Illinois. Joining an emerging trend among the states to place statutory limits on the ability of employers to … Continue Reading
On Friday last week the Chancellor issued the third and probably final Treasury Direction in relation to the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS). This is “the law” that will govern the flexible furlough arrangements from 1 July. As with the two previous Treasury Directions, this one is horribly complicated to navigate – to the point … Continue Reading
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) public health emergency has changed life as we know it, including by severely disrupting business on a nationwide scale. In some cases, employers have been forced to temporarily close their doors and cease operations, while others have had to make radical changes to the workplace in order to maintain operations. … Continue Reading
On April 16, 2020, a three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals for the First District Court of Texas held that an employer could compel a former employee to arbitrate her wrongful termination case, even though it had not signed the arbitration agreement, because the evidence demonstrated that the employer intended to be bound by … Continue Reading
In a recent blog, we wrote about the stringent language requirements in Belgian employment: how documents drafted in the wrong language are null and void but that this sanction of nullity may not be to the detriment of the employee, meaning that the employee can do a “cherry picking” of the provisions that are most … Continue Reading
Our colleagues Colter Paulson and Justin DiCharia at the Sixth Circuit Appellate Blog (which covers, as you may have guessed, developments in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit) authored the post below discussing the Sixth Circuit’s recent decision in a case in which the Court was tasked with deciding whether an employer … Continue Reading
AB 5, and its “ABC test,” expected to have greatest impact in “gig economy” jobs, but impact certain to be even more widely felt After a summer of lobbying and debating, the California Assembly adopted AB 5, a headline-grabbing law purporting to transform the status of gig-economy workers at companies like Uber, Lyft, and DoorDash. … Continue Reading
On August 9, 2019, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker signed into law the Illinois Workplace Transparency Act (“WTA”), imposing new requirements and modifying existing laws in ways that will impact nearly all Illinois employers – and may be a signal of things to come in other US states. The WTA aims to address concerns raised through … Continue Reading
If you’ve been following our blog, you already know that the topic of employer-mandated arbitration agreements has been a hot issue in recent years for government agencies and in the state and federal courts. Most notably, in May of last year, the United States Supreme Court issued its highly-anticipated decision in Epic Systems v. Lewis, … Continue Reading
The Court’s ruling in Lamps Plus, Inc., et al. v. Varela is the latest in the Court’s ongoing pro-employer, pro-arbitration jurisprudence As we first reported here, the United States Supreme Court’s docket this term includes three significant cases interpreting various aspects of the Federal Arbitration Act (“FAA”). Earlier this year, the Court ruled in the … Continue Reading
On January 15, 2019, the United States Supreme Court held in New Prime Inc. v. Oliveira that a trucking company could not compel its drivers, which it classified as independent contractors, to arbitrate their wage and hour claims against the company because Congress intended to exempt all interstate transportation workers from the Federal Arbitration Act … Continue Reading
As the Supreme Court’s October 2018 term opened, we wrote about three significant cases on its docket involving arbitration, each of which are likely to have an impact on the arbitration of employment-related claims. The Court issued its decision in the first of those cases on January 8, 2019. In his first opinion since joining … Continue Reading
We’ve been keeping you apprised of the many developments over the past few years coming from the United States Supreme Court and other courts concerning agreements between employers and their employees to arbitrate disputes arising out of the employment relationship. The Supreme Court’s decision last term in Epic Systems v. Lewis, which we discussed in … Continue Reading
On August 22, 2018, the California State Senate passed AB 3080, which, if signed into law by Governor Jerry Brown, would invalidate two types of commonly-used employment contracts that have been the subject of significant dialogue in the vast wake of the #metoo movement. First, the bill proposes to prohibit employers from requiring employees to … Continue Reading
Last December, the National Labor Relations Board issued a groundbreaking decision that gave both union and non-union employers more flexibility to protect their interests through employee handbooks and other written policies. This week, the Board’s top prosecutor – General Counsel Peter Robb – expanded on that decision and further clarified when an employers’ written policies … Continue Reading
On March 8, 2018, the Colorado Court of Appeals issued much-needed guidance regarding C.R.S. 8-2-113(3) in Crocker v. Greater Colorado Anesthesia, P.C. (“GCA”). This statutory provision provides that “any covenant not to compete provision of an employment, partnership, or corporate agreement between physicians which restricts the right of a physician to practice medicine . . … Continue Reading
In the current climate where sexual assault and harassment allegations against Hollywood elite, Congressmen and news anchors have triggered a wave of “me too” allegations, several tools commonly used by employers to shield themselves from liability have come under attack, including non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) and arbitration agreements. Many employers require employees to sign NDAs as … Continue Reading
With apologies for the interruption to this series, here are two further reader questions on the GDPR as it will apply to employers in the UK. I have heard that my corporate email address is my personal data. Does that mean that a DSAR sent to my employer should bring me copies of everything in … Continue Reading
Yesterday marked the first day of the United States Supreme Court’s new term, and the first case heard (Epic Systems Corp. v. Lewis) was one of interest to employers around the country. In several cases consolidated before the Court on appeal, the National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB”) found employer arbitration agreements that included waivers of … Continue Reading
How many letters have you written suspending an employee facing some form of disciplinary enquiry or dismissal, assuring him earnestly that it is a neutral act and in no way presumes any guilt?… Continue Reading
As followers of our blog know, we have been closely watching developments over the past few years involving the tension between the National Labor Relations Board and the courts concerning whether arbitration agreements that require employees to resolve most employment-related disputes in individual arbitration proceedings, and bar the use of class or collective action … Continue Reading
On April 3, 2015, we reported that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) had sent letters to numerous publicly-traded U.S. companies requesting their nondisclosure agreements, severance and settlement agreements, and other contracts entered into after the enactment of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (“Dodd-Frank”) to determine whether the documents unduly interfere … Continue Reading
