Michael Cross

Connect: Read more about Michael Cross
Firm/Organization: Seyfarth Shaw LLP
Blogs: California Peculiarities Employment Law Blog, The Blunt Truth, Trading Secrets

Latest Articles

On June 15, 2017, California’s Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board adopted the advisory committee recommendation that there is no current need for industry-specific regulations related to the activities of facilities licensed under the Medical Cannabis Regulation and Safety Act. But while the decision is good news for the industry, the findings leading to the recommendation reveal that the medical marijuana industry as a whole lacks a basic understanding of the rules that govern it…
Recently, the San Francisco Chronicle published an interesting story examining two fronts on which labor unions are trying to cash in on the passage of Prop 64 in November 2016, which legalized the sale and personal use of recreational marijuana in California. With its passing, California is poised to become the largest, most lucrative market for marijuana products in the United States (assuming the successes of craft beer and fine wines are fair markers). Nearly…
Seyfarth Synopsis: California voters gave the green light to recreational use of marijuana with the passage of Prop 64. Marijuana users may have felt like they struck Acapulco Gold, but a review of the law on drug testing in the workplace may turn out to be a buzzkill. When can an employer drug test its employees? Last November, California voters passed Proposition 64—the Adult Use of Marijuana Act. The new law permits individuals over the…
On September 25, California Governor Jerry Brown signed into law Senate Bill 1241. SB 1241, effective January 1, 2017, adds Section 925 to the Labor Code to restrain the ability of employers to require employees to litigate or arbitrate employment disputes (1) outside of California or (2) under the laws of another state. The only exception is where the employee was individually represented by a lawyer in negotiating an employment contract. For companies with headquarters…
Seyfarth Synopsis: On September 25 (yes, a Sunday), Governor Brown signed into law Senate Bill 1241. SB 1241, effective January 1, 2017, adds Section 925 to the Labor Code to restrain the ability of employers to require employees to litigate or arbitrate employment disputes (1) outside of California or (2) under the laws of another state. The only exception is where the employee was individually represented by a lawyer in negotiating an employment contract. For…
Seyfarth Synopsis:  Protecting trade secrets from employee theft requires more than using an NDA when onboarding employees. If businesses want to protect confidential information, they need a cradle-to-grave approach, reiterating employee obligations regularly, including during exit interviews. (Yes, you need to do exit interviews!) Headline stories in intellectual property theft tend to involve foreign hackers engaged in high-tech attacks to pilfer vast troves of data stored by big businesses or government entities, such as those…
Cross Posted from California Peculiarities. Seyfarth Synopsis:  Protecting trade secrets from employee theft requires more than using an NDA when onboarding employees. If businesses want to protect confidential information, they need a cradle-to-grave approach, reiterating employee obligations regularly, including during exit interviews. (Yes, you need to do exit interviews!) Headline stories in intellectual property theft tend to involve foreign hackers engaged in high-tech attacks to pilfer vast troves of data stored by big businesses or…
When is a microscope not needed? When the problem one is looking at is big as an elephant, not small as an amoeba. Nion, an electron microscope manufacturer, contracted with Gatan, a spectrometer manufacturer, to use Gatan’s spectrometers in Nion’s microscopes. The contract contained both confidentiality and non-compete clauses. When Gatan learned that Nion had sold other parties microscopes that used Nion’s own spectrometer, Gatan sued, claiming that Nion had breached the non-compete (but not…
On August 31, the California Legislature passed AB 465, aiming to “ensure that a contract to waive any of the rights, penalties, remedies, forums, or procedures under the Labor Code”—such as an arbitration agreement—is “a matter of voluntary consent.” This bill, now before Governor Brown for his approval, raises two big questions: (1) will the Governor sign the bill, and, if he does, (2) to what extent would the new law be enforceable? The proposed…