A federal district court in the Northern District of California recently found that a non-signatory to an arbitration agreement may enforce that agreement against a signatory and compel arbitration under the doctrine of equitable estoppel. Semin, a software developer, worked for Torbit, Inc. He signed an employment agreement containing a proprietary information non-disclosure provision, and a commitment… Continue Reading
Tag Archives: arbitration
California Appellate Decision Clarifies Standard for Injunctive Relief Carve-Outs Within California Arbitration Agreements
Posted in Practice & Procedure, Restrictive Covenants, Trade SecretsBy Robert Milligan and Grace Chuchla Arbitration agreements with carve-outs for provisional remedies are again the topic du jour, particularly in California courts which apply a stringent unconscionability analysis to employee arbitration agreements. As we previously discussed on this blog, in October 2012, a federal district court for the Eastern District of California upheld an… Continue Reading
US Supreme Court Strikes Down Oklahoma Supreme Court Decision And Holds That Arbitrator, Rather Than Court, Must Determine the Enforceability of Non-Compete Agreements Containing Arbitration Provisions
Posted in Non-Compete Enforceability, Practice & Procedure, Restrictive CovenantsBy Robert Milligan and Grace Chuchla There are not many issues that the United States Supreme Court can unanimously resolve in five short pages. The preeminence of the Federal Arbitration Act (“FAA”) is apparently one such issue, as the Supreme Court recently illustrated in its November 26 per curium opinion in Nitro-Lift Technologies LLC v. Howard, 568… Continue Reading
Oklahoma Supreme Court Nixes Overly Broad Non-Compete Agreement
Posted in Non-Compete EnforceabilityBy Rebecca Woods The Oklahoma Supreme Court recenty held that noncompete agreements are reviewable by a court, even if the agreement contains an arbitration clause and there is no claim as to the validity or enforceability of the arbitration clause. The Howard ruling is consistent with prior rulings by the court that evidence a hostility to the… Continue Reading
FINRA Arbitration Clause Did Not Apply to Trade Secret Misappropriation Claims
Posted in Trade SecretsBy Rina Wang, summer associate, and Timothy B. Nelson The California Court of Appeal recently addressed the issue of the interpretation of arbitration clauses in the context of claims for misappropriation of trade secrets in the case of Valentine Capital Asset Management, Inc. v. Agahi, 174 Cal.App.4th 606 (1st Dist. 2009). In Valentine, respondent John Valentine… Continue Reading
Georgia Court of Appeals Repeats Requirements for Non-compete and Non-disclosure Covenants
Posted in Restrictive CovenantsIn Global Link Logistics, Inc. v. Briles, No. A08A1871, (Ga. App. Feb. 18, 2009), the Georgia Court of Appeals recently reiterated Georgia court’s requirements for non-compete and non-disclosure covenants. The case involved the departure of Jim Briles from Global Link Logistics to a competitor. Briles moved for a declaratory judgment stating that the restrictive covenants in his… Continue Reading