Otto Immel Quoted in Gulfshore Business Article about Employer Noncompetes
Quarles & Brady attorney Otto Immel, a partner in the Labor. Employment & Benefits Practice Group based in the firm’s Naples, Fla., office, provided insight for a Gulfshore Business article about employer noncompete clauses.
With the Federal Trade Commission considering new rules that could prohibit the use of noncompetes in many situations, the article addressed considerations employers need to keep in mind when using noncompetes and the steps employers should consider now to prepare for potential changes to the rules.
In an excerpt from the article, Immel discussed what employers should be doing to protect sensitive information.
Otto Immel, a labor attorney with Quarles in Naples, said companies should educate workers on their noncompete rules as they are on-boarded, or hired.
Protect the data in advance. Employers should consider which administrative or staff positions access the most sensitive proprietary information. Those are the people who can destroy your competitive edge should they break their noncompete pacts and join a competitor, he said.
“Employers can bring (noncompete) policies and confidentiality obligations to the employees’ attention,” Immel says. “For departing employees, in particular, the best practice is to obtain written acknowledgment of these obligations and to account for all company devices assigned to the departing employee.”