Employers, especially in the context of workforce reductions, may provide departing employees with severance agreements in exchange for a release. Those agreements often include non-disparagement clauses and confidentiality clauses regarding the terms and the amount of the agreement. On February 21, 2023, in McLarenMacomb, the National Labor Relations Board held that such clauses infringe on employees’ rights under the National Labor Relations Act. Importantly, McLaren applies to both unionized and non-unionized workplaces alike.
Join us this Friday, February 8, for an interactive discussion on minimizing liabilities when terminating employees. Rachel Cowen and Brian Mead will talk about workplace investigations, releases and severance agreements.
Our lively 45-minute discussion will tackle the following topics:
5 Best Practices for Termination
Tips for Preparing Releases
Dos and Don’ts With Benefits
Friday, February 8, 2019 10:00 – 10:45 am PST 11:00 – 11:45 am MST 12:00 – 12:45 pm CST 1:00 – 1:45 pm EST
Large fines have recently been imposed against public companies due to using confidentiality provisions that violate whistleblower provisions under federal securities law. Many standard confidentiality clauses in employment agreements, severance agreements, release agreements, non-compete agreements and other employment related agreements will violate these whistleblower provisions. Recently, the Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations at the US Securities and Exchange Commission announced that it is actively reviewing these agreements to determine if there are possible securities law violations.
This webinar will address the whistleblower provisions relevant to employment related agreements, the recent SEC enforcement actions, the compliance issues raised by typical confidentiality clauses and actions for employers to consider for existing and future employment related agreements.
Multinational companies with employees in France should be aware that terminated employees subject to a non-compete restriction must be compensated during the non-compete period after termination of employment. Given this legal requirement, non-compete and severance agreements for employees in France must provide for financial compensation after employment termination during any non-compete period. If compensation is not provided during the non-compete period, the non-compete agreement is null and void, and the terminated employee is free to work for competitors. In the event an employer becomes aware that a former employee is breaching his or her non-compete agreement, the employer should still pay the financial consideration until it has strong written evidence of the breach. If the employee stops receiving financial consideration, the former employee could argue that the employer is breaching the severance or non-compete agreement and that the non-compete provision thus is no longer binding. Alternatively, non-compete agreements in France should provide that the employer can waive the non-compete restriction within a certain number of days following the employee’s termination of employment. This type of provision allows an employer to voluntarily choose to waive non-compete restrictions and avoid paying the former employee further financial consideration following employment termination.
In light of these requirements, multinational companies should make sure local management in France establish non-compete and severance agreements with French employees that allow a waiver of non-compete provisions within the prescribed time periods or that provide adequate financial consideration for any non-compete agreement provisions they want to enforce.
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