Non-Compete Disputes and Litigation

Greene Espel regularly represents businesses when their employees’ departures threaten the company’s valuable assets, including commercially sensitive information, regulated customer data, or customer relationships that the business has worked hard to protect. Greene Espel helps clients evaluate the extent to which their non-compete and non-solicit agreements are enforceable and takes steps to protect the employers’ business information and relationships.  When a negotiated resolution is impossible, we regularly seek and obtain injunctive relief to prevent former employees and agents of our clients from breaching their employment agreements or using or disclosing non-public personal and financial information, technical trade secrets, and confidential business methods belonging to our clients.   

Greene Espel also helps employees who want to move from one business to another, advising them about the scope of their obligations to their former employer, guiding them through the steps to return protected information and data, and defending them against allegations of wrongdoing. 

Likewise, we counsel employers about prospective new hires’ non-compete agreements so they can avoid disputes with former employers, sometimes negotiating non-compete period job duties that are satisfactory for all involved.  

When necessary, we work with computer forensics specialists to develop the evidence necessary to prove or defend against these cases, and to secure the return and deletion of data from the computers and networks of the other side. We have negotiated creative resolutions to many of these cases, frequently including stipulated preliminary injunctions that ensure that the court orders relief consistent with the parties’ needs.