In my last article, “Keeping Trade Secrets Secret”—Part 1: Identifying Your Trade Secrets, I shared how important it is for a business, regardless of its size, to identify (and protect) those trade secrets that make the business special and unique. However, identifying your business’s trade secrets is only the first step in protecting your business from becoming a victim of trade secret theft. READ MORE
Category: Labor & Employment Law
Florida Business Litigation: “Keeping Trade Secrets Secret”—Part 1: Identifying Your Trade Secrets
February 20, 2018As Fort Lauderdale business litigation lawyers, we see it all the time—especially in Florida. A business owner frantically visits us because a former employee has hijacked the business’s customer, supplier, or inventory lists; started their own company or other competing business venture; and basically assumed the identity of the business from which it departed. In other situations, a former employee may steal (and then use as his or her own) a secret recipe or formula that makes the client’s business uniquely special. What can a business do to protect itself from becoming the victim of theft of trade secrets? READ MORE
Florida Business Litigation: “Owners” without Stock or Membership Certificates—Do They Have Rights?
February 27, 2018It’s not uncommon for entrepreneurs to invest their time, energy, skill, and capital into an established corporation’s or company’s business with the understanding that, upon investing into the business, they will become owners of the business entity. When this happens, the business entity may not provide the investor with stock or membership certificates evidencing his or its ownership, and may later claim that the investor is not an owner entitled to distributions or anything else related to ownership in an interest, but rather merely an employee. Does such an investor have any recourse to reclaim his or its interest in the company or corporation? In Florida, the answer is: Yes. READ MORE
Non-Compete Agreements: A (Potentially) Enforceable, Effective Way to Protect Your Florida Business
March 15, 2017By: Justin C. Carlin
As a Florida business owner, how would you feel if you devised a fool-proof system of generating profit within your industry, only to find that one of your employees left your business, plagiarized the system that you spent months (if not years) devising, and began directly competing with you? The answer is obvious—angry, furious, betrayed, disappointed, frustrated. The list goes on. Fortunately, however, there’s a solution to this extremely common problem: a Florida non-competition (or “non-compete”) agreement. READ MORE
