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US judge throws out FTC's ban on non-compete agreements
- whatshisface 2y agoNon-paywalled, reputable source: >"The Commission’s lack of evidence as to why they chose to impose such a sweeping prohibition ... instead of targeting specific, harmful non-competes, renders the Rule arbitrary and capricious," wrote Brown, [U.S. District Judge] https://www.reuters.com/legal/us-judge-strikes-down-biden-administration-ban-worker-noncompete-agreements-2024-08-20/ https://www.reuters.com/legal/us-judge-strikes-down-biden-ad...
- Jun8 2y agoWhat would be an example of a “non-harmful” non-compete? In the game of employer vs employee, any non-compete is undesirable for the former and desirable for the latter.
- SoftTalker 2y agoPossibly a niche, highly compensated job that requires specific abilities and very detailed domain knowledge imparted by the employer at considerable expense. At the other end of the spectrum were the stories of fast-food workers being held to non-competes, which is just bullshit. If you can learn the job in a few weeks and basically anyone can do it, a non-compete agreement is absurd.
- Reason077 2y agoBurger King doesn't want McDonalds finding out the secrets of why their fries taste so much better.
- SoftTalker 2y agoPerhaps, but the kitchen employees don't know. All they know is "dump the frozen fries in the basket, put the basket in the fryer, and hit the button to start the timer."
- habosa 2y agoA good example might be the practice of “garden leave” in finance where employees are paid to not work between jobs to reduce the risk of bringing active strategy information to a competitor. Seems pretty low harm to the employee (it’s paid vacation) and it prevents some pretty ugly kinds of poaching.
- justinpombrio 2y agoGarden leave non-competes were allowed under the FTC's rule.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- cco 2y agoTo my understanding "garden leave" wasn't disallowed, you can _pay_ people to not work for a competitor, but you can't enforce limitations on their employment if you aren't paying them.
- grahamjameson 2y agoI hear this quite frequently and I’d have to disagree. While it’s certainly hard to complain about getting paid to ride the bench (I’ve been there myself), garden leave inhibits one’s freedom to work on what they find interesting. Not to mention missing out on bonus.
- Bluecobra 2y agoThat might be fine if you are getting 100% salary + benefits, but some of these agreements can be too broad. It could say that the amount of salary can be an arbitrary amount determined at the end of employment. What if they decide they only want to pay something like 50 or 75% base salary? Also once you are on a family plan, paying COBRA can be a substantial expense. My plan is nearly $1,600 a month if I had to pay the full amount.
- MikeTheGreat 2y agoHow is this different than them being an employee (and the employer deciding that they don't have to work on anything)? Also, I thought this was a British-ism, because over there employers can't fire at will and instead once the employee (or employer) has given notice then the employer must keep paying them until the end of the notice period.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- ETHisso2017 2y agoChevron in action: https://www.scotusblog.com/2024/06/supreme-court-strikes-down-chevron-curtailing-power-of-federal-agencies/ https://www.scotusblog.com/2024/06/supreme-court-strikes-dow...
- recursivegirth 2y agoRemember folks, they were bullshit before, they are bullshit now. Be ethical, and you will be fine.
- datavirtue 2y agoEthical?
- mikhael28 2y agoAsk for a raise once a year, be happy if you don’t get one, and if a competitor tries to hire you away for a lot more money, stay loyal.
- yoyohello13 2y agoExactly, bend the knee to your corporate lords and they may show your favor.
- bearjaws 2y agoDamn dude the market is bad but its not that bad.
- mikhael28 2y agolol I was trying to be sarcastic, came off as bitter? I’m not even looking for a job, I’m traveling the world and living my best life. I think my comment was more about how non-competes encourage toxic ideas of what loyalty you, as a free agent, are supposed to offer people who are fundamentally just paying you some money while they don’t reciprocate. Not that I’ve had this experience myself, just something I’ve seen others go through. I’ve had nothing but great employers for the most part.
- hansvm 2y agoWasting company time attracting competitors is surely a violation of your fiduciary duty. I don't pay you to sleep or eat, so why should I pay you to interview? At our competitors no less? For anyone reading this thread seriously, the job market is fine, feel free to market your skills. As a rule of thumb, if your employer didn't agree to the raise till you presented a counteroffer then you should almost always leave. No matter what your employer said when you started or thereafter, if you're doing a fantastic job the "once per year" bonus/promotion cycle is bubkiss, and they will absolutely compensate you accordingly (on the flip-side, if you haven't been hired yet, don't start underleveled with a promise of a promotion except in dire circumstances; this has been hashed out before, but reply if you want more details).
- compiler-devel 2y agoYeah… this was a pretty obvious power grab by a bunch of unelected bureaucrats. Sure, it’s popular, but what comes next?
- malfist 2y agoReasonable wages? Competition in the markets? Fair compensation?
- stanleykm 2y agoI’m shivering in terror at the thought.
- sunir 2y agoA more perfect union?
- axus 2y agoThe unelected bureaucrats of the US Department of Defense control a lot of money, I'm expecting more lawsuits from the parties who don't get as much of that money as they want.
- drawkward 2y agoNothing about it is obvious to me. Care to justify your statement?
- naasking 2y agoIt was giving power back to employees over clauses that are absurd and should not be enforceable.
- RIMR 2y agoGetting rid of non-compete agreements is just allowing American workers have jobs without ridiculous demands from their employers that they abandon their entire livelihoods for a decade after working for them for a few months. Non-compete agreements are extraordinarily anti-worker, and fundamentally anti-free-market. If you leave your job, you should be allowed to find another similar job without your former employer suing you for having a career. >What comes next? Actual workers rights in America, hopefully.
- bdd8f1df777b 2y agoThis ban makes sense, but it is obvious in the domain of the legislature only.
- jellicle 2y agoThe legislature (US Congress) has specifically given the FTC the legal authority to regulate and prevent unfair and anti-competitive practices by corporations, employees, etc., including by banning those practices, fining the entities involved, and so on. The FTC is acting on Congress' direct instructions to act.
- fastball 2y agoAn enforcement agency should not be in the business of deciding what should be enforced. Those responsibilities should be separated.
- drawkward 2y agoWe are talking about the police, right, and how they get no say whatsoever in deciding what to enforce, yes?
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- invokestatic 2y agoThere are a ton of federal agencies that have the power to make regulations and then enforce them. This power is specifically delegated by Congress. It’s hard to imagine a functioning government without this. For example, Congress recognizes it is not a subject matter expert at radio signals, so it delegates the technical details of regulating the electromagnetic spectrum to the FCC. Same thing for the FDA. Congress isn’t an expert on how clinical trials should be designed so it delegates that to the FDA. A huge one is the DEA, which can both determine how drugs are scheduled and can also enforce it. Congress has the power to overrule the agency when it sees fit.
- gslin 2y agohttps://archive.ph/6lUHO https://archive.ph/6lUHO
- ChrisArchitect 2y ago[dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41304695 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41304695
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- carterschonwald 2y agoFff. I think that banning non-competes is the single best improvement in rights of employees (who don’t own a substantial share of the organization )
- jagged-chisel 2y agoPrecisely why companies want to see the ban stricken.
- bonestamp2 2y agoIt's good for everyone except the company that the person leaves (more tax revenue for the public).
- gibolt 2y agoCalifornia banned non-competes years ago. There should be plenty of evidence available to use as a counter argument to this one judge's opinion. Edit: In 1941, so it's been a while
- kube-system 2y agoCalifornia's state law is completely irrelevant in federal court.
- gibolt 2y agoThe argument was specifically a lack of evidence for a sweeping ban vs a targeted one. While the law can not be used as precedent, the evidence from nearly a century of business in the state with the highest GDP is a good starting point.
- kube-system 2y agoWhat specific evidence possibly exists in California that is relevant to the granularity of rule-making that the FTC can legally perform under federal law? The scope of a regulatory agency's authority isn't linked to the quality of their rulemaking.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- skhunted 2y agoWhat the judge said according to the article: The rule “is arbitrary and capricious because it is unreasonably overbroad without a reasonable explanation” California’s experience can be used to show that the rule is not capricious or unreasonably broad. The act establishing the FTC gave it broad powers and it does have the authority to do what it did. However, it is clear that the Supreme Court is going in a direction to greatly reduce regulatory authority. This ruling will likely stand but it shouldn’t.
- mjfl 2y agowould banning noncompetes federally violate the 10th amendment?
- jellicle 2y ago"The Congress shall have Power To ... regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;" How is the power to regulate commerce not an enumerated power of Congress?
- bell-cot 2y agoInterstate, vs. intrastate, commerce. Historically (IANAL, etc.), if it didn't cross a state line, then it was not Congress' business.
- narski 2y agoWickard v. Filburn basically destroyed the commerce clause. Growing wheat on your own farm is "interstate commerce" because it impacts national wheat prices (since you would have bought that wheat otherwise!). In the second half of the 20th century, this ruling was used to great effect to limit the power of in-state businesses in the South to discriminate. On the other hand, it was also used to justify why the federal government can prevent states from legalizing marijuana, even if it won't leave the state. It's certainly a ruling with a complicated moral legacy, in that it has some clearly good use cases, a few bad ones, while also brazenly defying the clear meaning of the constitution because doing so was convenient to the state. Not sure how I feel about it, but I guess it was inevitable anyway.
- vundercind 2y agoYou know, I think I’d be fine with non-competes that only apply to jobs with employers in the same state, and to jobs with an employer that does no business outside the state. That’d effectively be a blanket ban anyway, so sure.
- ffhhj 2y ago> ...and with the Indian Tribes;" and Aliens, they forgot the Aliens.
- synergy20 2y agosomeone helps me, does that mean I need to abide by whatever-company-required-non-compete-agreements in the future, or the opposite?
- hn_acker 2y agoThe judge has preserved the status quo: If you signed a non-compete agreement (and don't live in a state where such agreements are prohibited) then you have to continue to abide by it.
- School-Cotton 2y agoThis will be appealed, so nobody knows yet.
- buffington 2y agouh, helps? future? opposite? what? Seriously, I've read that sentence five times now and can't even begin to imagine what you're asking.
- yazzku 2y ago"Agreements" Right. Like you actually have a fucking choice when every employer does it and you've come out of college with some $300k in student debt. This judge needs to step down on Earth. Or is he on a Boeing spacecraft?
- iambateman 2y agoI literally got a pointless noncompete removed from a contract just because of the FTC announcement. The proposed noncompete had a 10-year lockup for a freelance contract…obviously nonsense. But it was so helpful to say “these aren’t sticking around so let’s just cut it out.” These changes make a big difference in encouraging entrepreneurs and helping our economy, as well as just reducing stress for a lot of people.
- ProAm 2y ago10-years is very unreasonable. I can see maybe 1 year or 2 years working for a direct competitor, but 10! Especially contracting. How can you expect to make a living at all?
- causality0 2y agoAny amount of time is unreasonable. We already have laws against corporate espionage and sharing corporate secrets. Competitors offering better compensation to workers is fifty percent of the basis of capitalism.
- ProAm 2y agoOh I totally agree. Ive just never encountered 10 years. My jaw dropped a little. Ive definitely seen 1-2 years but also have never seen it enforced. Most people either left on good terms, or were let go not because of performance, but just re-org, etc.... and as long as you were not bringing trade secrets the former employer was really just happy you were working again.
- kube-system 2y ago"unreasonable" here actually has some legal meaning, and some states have previously established some pretty relevant case law as to what is a reasonable amount of time. I remember running one by a lawyer many years ago, and they said that the state I was in would not enforce a non-compete more than one year in duration. So just because a non-compete is written in your contract, and they're legal in your state, doesn't mean that the specific non-compete you have is legal in your state.
- jongjong 2y agoThe real tragedy is that many industries have become so monopolized (due in a large part to government-created systemic issues; regulatory capture, reserve banking, etc...) that we need bans on such clauses because otherwise, corporate monopolies could dictate essentially any terms and they would become standard throughout the entire economy within a decade. It would speed up systemic enslavement of the population. I think legally, such bans can easily be justified by the fact that a corporation is not actually a person. Corporations do not have the constitutional right to free speech as people do. Personally, I tend to lean much further on this issue as I believe that corporate personhood and limited liability are unethical, socially harmful and economically inefficient (in the long run).
- drawkward 2y agoCitizens United has entered the chat.
- bionhoward 2y agoRepost from the other thread: this rule is too weak, not too strong. Needs to cover the customer noncompete clauses of the closed AI companies. They shouldn’t be allowed to send paying customers messages with prohibitions on use to train AIs, because that creates a safety issue where their unsafe outputs cannot be used as counter examples.
- RIMR 2y agoWith all due respect, I don't think you know what this thread is about.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- RIMR 2y agoNo matter how much conservatives preach the will of the free market, when the free market gets in the way of exploiting the working class, they are happy to let the law tell Americans where they can or can't work, or what kind of work they are allowed to do. There's seems to be a conservative judge in Texas for just about any regressive thing you need.
- ffhhj 2y agoCompanies already have patents, lots of them, why do they need non-competes to protect "their ideas"?
- School-Cotton 2y agoThe obvious answer is that most ideas are not patented.
- hn_acker 2y agoRather, companies already have non-disclosure agreements (NDAs), which allow companies to preserve all of the secrets that copyright and patents do not cover.
- loeg 2y agoA single judge in a lower court in a notoriously anti-regulation part of Texas. This isn't very interesting (yet).
- anigbrowl 2y agoNorthern District of Texas Shocker.
- myko 2y agoAppointed by trump, all of his picks should be extremely suspect given everything we know about the man now
- ein0p 2y agoDisappointing, but not unexpected. The ruling/owner class wants you, the wage slave, to have as little mobility as possible so as to minimize competition for your labor, and therefore cost.
- benreesman 2y agoLina Khan is the only public servant deserving the name at the high levels. I hope she leaves them nothing.
- benreesman 2y agohttps://youtu.be/A98vqgBsoxQ?si=eSpyeyrg8f4bkLrC https://youtu.be/A98vqgBsoxQ?si=eSpyeyrg8f4bkLrC
- backtoyoujim 2y ago"saying the regulator lacked the authority to stop agreements that bar employees from getting new jobs at rival firms." Who said that employers had the authority to tell ex employees what to do to begin with ?
- WillPostForFood 2y agoThey don't have the right to tell ex-employees what to do, but current employees can make agreements that extend past employment.
- consteval 2y ago... which isn't really how this goes, because these agreements are barely agreements. I mean, you can't just put whatever you want in a contract. It's never worked that way. Not to mention that employees often can't amend contracts, and they can't say no either. In some industries it's impossible to find a job without a non-compete. At that point, it's not an agreement, its coercion.
- WillPostForFood 2y agothese agreements are barely agreements They either are contracts with all the requirements of being a contract (agreement, consideration, etc..), or they are nothing.
- consteval 2y agoNot true. Again you can't just put anything you want in a contract and then, if they agree, say "yep that works!" Courts can, and regularly do, find certain parts of a contract are unreasonable and won't be enforced. Doesn't matter if both parties understood and agreed. Just because something is a contract doesn't mean it's really for real!
- derbOac 2y agoNot sure why you're being downvoted. Obviously there's something controversial about noncompetes but to me they seem problematic on their face, like something that violates basic contract law and shouldn't require explicit banning by the FTC, congress, or anyone. A judge should find them unconstitutional or something. Let's say this was marriage, and you had people requiring spouses sign a "noncompete agreement" with marriage, so that the person, upon divorce, agrees not to date or marry anyone else within a certain distance, which amounts to hundreds of miles. Is there really any question that that would not be an enforceable contract? It doesn't seem any different to me legally. It might also seem extreme but I also don't see how this doesn't violate the 13th amendment ban on involuntary servitude. You're not working for the employer, but you are in effect providing some labor benefit to them against your will, without compensation.
- fuzzfactor 2y agoFrom a different article: >"A sweeping prohibition of noncompete agreements by the FTC was an unlawful extension of power that would have put American workers, businesses, and our economy at a competitive disadvantage," U.S. Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Suzanne Clark said in a statement. If you ever wondered what kind of moron would get this completely backwards and think that non-compete agreements give Americans a competitive advantage, now you know.
- jeremyjh 2y agoThere is virtually no chance that she thinks that. What she thinks is that she is funded by businesses that like to suppress wages, and non-competes are one tool to do that with. The quote is called "public relations", which is bizspeak for lying.
- rich_sasha 2y agoThis reminds me how one of the most insane things in the world, it seems to me, are democratically elected judges and prosecutors. While handing down judgments and deciding whether to prosecute a marginal case, they have to ask themselves: what will win me reelection in n years.
- School-Cotton 2y agoFederal judges in the U.S. (like this one) are not elected. They’re appointed for life by the president.
- webninja 2y agoWhich presidential administration appointed this corrupt judge?
- know-how 2y agoThis makes no sense. You mean the evil businesses owners, dressed in all black, sneak into her backdoor in the middle of the night carrying burlap sacks embroidered with the money emblem on them? You can't presume to know what anyone thinks.
- streetsweeping 2y ago[flagged]
- ldjkfkdsjnv 2y agoQuestion for anyone who knows: Imagine you are cofounder of a startup that raised significant VC capital. But your base salary is less than 151k. Can you leave and start a competing firm?
- buffington 2y agoThere's too little information for anyone to give you a solid answer on this. You'd need a lawyer to examine all the existing agreements and contracts, then imagine the sorts of legal cases you'd need to defend against even if you felt like you were in the clear. And if you're thinking of taking the capital to the new competing firm - you'll want to set aside a hefty portion for lawyers. I'm super puzzled though: are you in this situation? If you're asking here, you're obviously not talking to a lawyer and absolutely should be.
- croes 2y ago[flagged]
- worik 2y ago> the FTC failed to justify why it had banned virtually all non-competes instead of “instead of targeting specific, harmful non-competes”. I wonder how the FTC would do that? "Targetting specific..." sounds to me like addressing people's contracts individually. That is a job for a lawyer not a commission (I am not a lawyer - I know little...).
- advisedwang 2y agoThe FTC does persue specific non-competes. My understanding is that this is because the non-compete harms the general market (by reducing talent available) as well as individual employees (by limiting them), so the public in some sense has a right to sue too.
- atleastoptimal 2y ago[flagged]
- cyrnel 2y agoNot a lawyer, but I read the full opinion (I highly recommend making a free PACER account). It's a summary judgement essentially saying that even though the FTC has a long-established history in both the law itself and legal precedent for making rules to protect people from "unfair methods of competition" apparently that was all an illusion and the FTC has no power to do that at all. This was based on (IMO) flimsy reasoning that a 1975 law[1] that granted the FTC some new, explicit rulemaking powers over warranties (including a provision that says something like "nothing in this law is meant to restrict powers already granted by the FTC Act") actually caused the FTC to lose all other implicit rule-making power, even though obviously that wasn't Congress's intention and isn't supported by the text. The judge went further to claim the rule was "arbitrary and capricious", even though the rule was published alongside 570 pages of analysis[2] (that I also read), and the relevant Supreme Court decision[3] explicitly requires judges to defer to the expertise of federal agencies in these matters. Once again, we can't have nice things, even if the law literally says we can. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnuson%E2%80%93Moss_Warranty_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnuson%E2%80%93Moss_Warranty... [2]: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2024/05/07/2024-09171/non-compete-clause-rule https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2024/05/07/2024-09... [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCC_v._Prometheus_Radio_Project https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCC_v._Prometheus_Radio_Projec...
- hi-v-rocknroll 2y agoCOTUS needs to explicitly grant the power to federally regulate and homogenize employment contractual terms with the Department of Labor because, right now, they are a patchwork and vary state-to-state. Currently, every large multinational employer has to maintain potentially up to 56 different employment agreements to cover every US state and territory, but more typically it's around 6 to 20.
- Radle 2y ago"She was the first African-American woman federal judge nominated by President Donald Trump", judges being appointed by politicians is a complete joke.
- School-Cotton 2y agoIs there any country where judges aren’t appointed by politicians? Who else would they be appointed by?
- amanaplanacanal 2y agoSome judges are elected instead.
- randmeerkat 2y agoGood, administrative courts ran by political appointees is antithetical to democracy. Has everyone forgotten how the FCC supported net neutrality until a former Comcast CEO was appointed to run it, gutting net neutrality? People should be in communication with their Representatives and Senators, who in turn should be making laws based on the demands of the people, rather than administrative courts which are not beholden to the democratic process.
- johnnyanmac 2y ago>who in turn should be making laws based on the demands of the people You see, that's where the fantasy ends... If congress is bought off I'd rather trust the administrations. They aren't perfect but are usually more on point.
- randmeerkat 2y ago> If congress is bought off I'd rather trust the administrations. They aren't perfect but are usually more on point. You also vote for your Representatives and Senators. I’m surprised people are so willing to advocate against their democratic interests for short term gains.
- johnnyanmac 2y ago>You also vote for your Representatives and Senators. yes, one represenative that has continually lost represenative power for a century, and one senate who's as effective in California as they are in Wyoming. Senate was always built that way, but represenatives growing weaker is part of the mechanics reasons behind why nothing feels representative.
- randmeerkat 2y agoNihilism does nothing but to further erode the foundations of democracy.
- 2y ago
- cyrnel 2y agoThankfully, non-competes are still illegal under the National Labor Relations Act, as long as the NLRB doesn't change their current interpretation: https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/noncompete-agreements-violate-us-labor-law-official-says-2023-05-30/ https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/noncompete-agreements-vio...
- advisedwang 2y agoThat article says that is the opinion of the NLRB General council but not yet a rule or precedent. > Abruzzo asked agency lawyers to send cases to her office involving arguably unlawful noncompetes. Her office could use one of those cases to ask the board to restrict or prohibit the use of noncompetes.
- rodgerd 2y agoUnfortunately the Texas courts have indicated that they will be finding the NRLB illegal in and of itself.
- blurbleblurble 2y agoIn case you were wondering who's responsible: "U.S. Chamber Wins Lawsuit Over FTC Noncompete Agreements Ban" https://www.uschamber.com/lawsuits/u-s-chamber-wins-lawsuit-over-ftc-noncompete-agreements-ban https://www.uschamber.com/lawsuits/u-s-chamber-wins-lawsuit-...
- lolinder 2y agoEven if this weren't thrown out, the rule would have been up for re-certification every 4 years with every single presidential election, including this one. Administrative rulemaking is an extremely fragile way to run a country with or without judicial review simply because a single nation-wide election can completely alter the administrative landscape overnight. Making rules like this is Congress's job not just because some judge says so—it's Congress's job because only Congress can make laws that aren't perpetually at risk of being stripped out when a new party takes power. I want non-competes to be banned permanently, not just banned until the political winds shift by 5%.
- advisedwang 2y agoYes, but on the other hand Congress is so dysfunctional the choice is often regulatory/executive action or nothing. Even if you think the back and forth isn't worthwhile, it's actually not politically avoidable because the other party will still play this game and you end up with a back and forth around an equilibrium further from what you might want.
- lolinder 2y agoIt's not a popular opinion, but I'm pretty convinced that a few (5<=N<=10) years of administrative rulemaking being handicapped would fix Congress up pretty thoroughly. Both major parties benefit from the status quo of Congress being incapable and everything being ephemeral—each can promise their stakeholders that if you elect them this cycle they'll make sure that things go their way for this cycle. The ephemeral nature of the "win" is valuable because if they actually made a permanent fix the urgency to elect party Y would be gone. It's the subscription model applied to governance. My theory is that if you remove the administrative law game, things will quickly get broken enough that stakeholders will demand better, so both parties will get their act together and actually try to pass legislation again. It's entirely possible that I'm wrong (and cue the inevitable "it's not both sides" comments), but unless something unexpected happens to the court system it looks like we'll get to see in a few years.
- 2y ago
- juanani 2y ago[dead]
- slavboj 2y agoNoncompetes are terrible and should be banned as a matter of public policy. But it's a legal atrocity that the FTC gets to, by fiat, throw out massive numbers of existing contracts, because they woke up one day and decided they are suddenly "unfair competition" (mind you, not lack of competition). They could just as easily decide that companies "compete unfairly" by making employees better offers - and in fact did exactly this during the FDR administration!
- advisedwang 2y agoFwiw virtually every contract has a severability clause so only the non-compete clauses were really on the line here, not whole contracts.
- jmyeet 2y agoThe most important thing is that a sweeping Federal ban once again came out of a Federal District Court in Texas. A couple of days ago I wrote up a quick primer on how and why this happens [1]. Again, it's appropriate. The idea has been pushed that the courts are apolitical, that judges (particularly Supreme Court judges) sit atop an Ivory Tower and come down every now and again to be consulted like the Oracle of Delphi. The truth is that the courts are, and always have been political. People are becoming increasingly aware of this. Put another way: take any Supreme Court decision on a controversial issue and you'll probably find a reasoned dissent in addition to the majority decision. More often than not it's the politics of the justices voting that determine which of those became the majority opinion, not some objective argument of law. After all, on constitutional matters, the court is interpreting very few words that are rather vague. All sorts of tests and doctrines have been summoned out of thin air on top of this. Courts, particularly in Texas, have become increasingly activist and have made sweeping nationwide rulings, giving little to no deference to Congress or the Executive. This is a power grab by the judiciary over the other two branches and a pretty serious one. It's hard not to look at the court system we have and see it as nothing more than a tool to block any legislative action but only in one direction. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41287569 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41287569
- ummonk 2y agoIt's the Northern District of Texas. This ruling was inevitable from that court, regardless of the legal merits. The important question is what the rulings will be as the case makes its way up the appeals process.
- hi-v-rocknroll 2y agoYeap. Venue shopping for political appointees who legislate from the bench.
- mrandish 2y agoMaybe this will be an unpopular opinion, but I think non-competes should be allowed in certain situations. When I sold a tech startup I founded to a F500 tech company, the acquirer separately asked if I'd be willing to sell them a personal non-compete agreement. I retained my own personal lawyers who negotiated on my behalf separately from the startup acquisition (which included my existing employment contract with the startup). Since this was a separate agreement with me personally about me selling my option to do or not do something in the future, the board of the startup wasn't a party to the negotiation (although they were aware the acquirer had requested this and I'd agreed to negotiate). I did decide to sell my future personal rights for a limited number of years and I kept all the proceeds from that separate agreement. This turned out to be quite lucrative for me. Frankly, I really didn't want to compete with the acquirer anyway so it was literally a 'no-cost' thing for me to agree to. The acquirer, the startup and I all ended up being happy. To the extent banning all non-competes would have prevented me from making that personal agreement, I think it's a bad idea. I own the rights to my own future behavior and I should be able to keep, sell or give away those rights as I wish. At the same time, I also think non-compete agreements should not be allowed to just be automatically bundled into the terms of an employment agreement. Non-competes should be optional for all parties and negotiated separately from employment agreements. I'd also be fine with a limit on the percentage of employees a company can have non-competes with and requiring that any non-compete cost the company a significant amount of additional money compared to that employees base compensation.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- ChrisArchitect 2y ago[dupe] More discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41304695 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41304695
- darksim905 2y ago-heavy sigh- this is frustrating.
- xtiansimon 2y agoMaybe it’s a naive thought, but isn’t non-compete opposed to at-will employment? You can be let go and not allowed to work for a competitor? Or is this a one-way process—you can quit, but not go to the competition ?