The Inbox, How Many More Decades Until Spring Edition

Here at the Suits by Suits Worldwide Operations Center, weather continues to have us flummoxed, vexed, and annoyed: even though a famous Pennsylvania rodent discerned that we would have six more weeks of our brutal winter, we’ve had a pleasant warm spell that is about to come to a crushing end due to a storm front that goes by the curious name of "Texas Hooker" (we did not make that up).  And we’re about to be plunged back into the depths of the polar vortex yet again – although our earlier bouts with the grim chill may have wiped out our area’s growing population of stink bugs.   

In any event, we always take shelter from the storms, the cold, and the heat by digging into our Inbox of interesting developments in executive employment disputes and the issues that surround them, including:

• The Securities and Exchange Commission has filed an amicus brief in the Second Circuit, arguing that its interpretation of a “whistleblower” under Dodd-Frank – essentially an employee who reports wrongdoing either internally or to the SEC – should be followed.  We’ve covered this case, Liu v. Siemens, before, for an earlier ruling holding that Dodd-Frank’s whistleblower protections don’t apply overseas. 
• Staying with the whistleblower theme for a minute: government contractor Kellogg Brown & Root is being attacked by a whistleblower, who has complained to the SEC and the Justice Department that employees are forced to sign confidentiality agreements that prevent them from ever disclosing allegations of wrongdoing.  This one could be interesting…
• Auto retailer Carmax is defending the arbitration clause in its employment agreement in a California appellate court, urging it to reject an employee’s argument that the clause is illusory because Carmax reserved the right to amend it at any time. 
• The bankruptcy trustee for real estate company Grubb & Ellis is trying to claw back $650,000 from a former executive, alleging the payments in stock and paid time off were fraudulent. 
• Finally, while we write a lot about non-compete agreements between executives and employers generally, we rarely see them between divorcing spouses – but a California court of appeal ruled on just such an issue this week.  The court held that a judge’s order prohibiting one spouse from working in the same field – the rum importing business – as the other spouse didn’t violate California’s general ban on non-compete agreements because the order was an order, and not an agreement.  It remanded the case, however, finding its five-year, worldwide ban on the one spouse getting into the rum importing business was overbroad. 

• Bankruptcy
• Dodd-Frank Act
• The Inbox
• Whistleblowers