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We invite you to review our newly-posted January 2020 California Employment Law Notes, a comprehensive review of the latest and most significant developments in California employment law. The highlights include:

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Global Protein Prods., Inc. v. Le, 42 Cal. App. 5th 352 (2019)

Global Protein Products, Inc. (“GPP”) successfully sued its former employee Kevin K. Le for misappropriation of trade secrets, breach of contract and unfair competition and obtained a stipulated permanent injunction against him and his company from “acquiring, disclosing, using, or attempting or threatening to acquire, disclose, or use, GPP’s trade secrets”…

Parrish v. Latham & Watkins LLP, 3 Cal. 5th 767 (2017)

In a prior litigation, FLIR Systems, Inc. and Indigo Systems Corp. (collectively, “FLIR”) brought suit against their former employees, William Parrish and E. Timothy Fitzgibbons (the “Former Employees”), for, among other things, misappropriation of trade secrets. The Former Employees defeated those claims and then obtained a ruling that the misappropriation of trade secrets…

Popescu v. Apple Inc., 2016 WL 3578970 (Cal. Ct. App. 2016)

Dan Popescu sued Apple Inc. for damages after he was fired by his employer, Constellium Rolled Products Ravenswood, LLC. Popescu alleged that Apple took affirmative steps to convince Constellium to fire him in retaliation for his resistance to Apple’s alleged anticompetitive conduct. The trial court sustained Apple’s demurrer to Popescu’s first amended complaint,…

United States v. Nosal, 2016 WL 3608752 (9th Cir. 2016)

In this criminal proceeding brought under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (“CFAA”), the United States government filed a criminal indictment against David Nosal (a former employee of Korn/Ferry International) as a result of his obtaining information from Korn/Ferry’s computer system for the purpose of defrauding Korn/Ferry and setting up a competing executive search…

Richtek USA, Inc. v. uPI Semiconductor Corp., 242 Cal. App. 4th 651 (2015)

Richtek sued three of its former employees (all residents of Taiwan) and the company they formed (uPI Semiconductor) for misappropriation of Richtek’s trade secrets. The trial court sustained the former employees’ demurrer to the complaint on the ground that the lawsuit was barred by the Taiwanese statute of limitations after taking…

Here’s a recent victory we obtained on behalf of our clients SunEdison, Inc., et al. The individual defendants (then-current employees of SunPower, Inc.) were alleged to have violated the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) by connecting USB devices to SunPower’s computer system and allegedly copying data. U.S. District Court Judge William H. Orrick granted our motion to dismiss the complaint on the grounds…

Parrish v. Latham & Watkins LLP, 2014 WL 4220542 (Cal. Ct. App. 2014)

In a prior litigation, FLIR Systems, Inc., and Indigo Systems Corp. (collectively, “FLIR”) brought suit against their former employees, William Parrish and E. Timothy Fitzgibbons (the “Former Employees”), for, among other things, misappropriation of trade secrets.  The Former Employees defeated the claims and then obtained a ruling that the misappropriation of…

Wanke, Indus., Commercial, Residential, Inc. v. Superior Court, 209 Cal. App. 4th 1151 (2012)

In an underlying lawsuit, Wanke sued its former employees Scott Keck and Jacob Bozarth for misappropriation of trade secrets, among other things. That lawsuit was settled, and the parties agreed to a stipulated injunction pursuant to which Keck, Bozarth and their company WP Solutions (collectively, “WP Solutions”) would not contact…

FLIR Sys., Inc. v. Parrish, 174 Cal. App. 4th 1270 (2009)

FLIR Systems purchased Indigo Systems, which manufactures and sells microbolometers (a device used in connection with infrared cameras, night vision and thermal imaging), for $185 million in 2004. William Parrish and Timothy Fitzgibbons were shareholders and officers of Indigo before the company was sold to FLIR; after the sale, they continued working for…