On July 3, 2019, Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law Senate Bill 188 also known as the Creating a Respectful and Open Workplace for Natural Hair (CROWN) Act.  The CROWN Act amends the California Education Code and the Fair Employment and Housing Act’s definition of race to include traits historically associated with race, including hair texture and protective hairstyles.  Protective hairstyles include, but are not limited to, “braids, locks, and twists.”…

Ending a more than 15-year-long legal battle, the Fifth Circuit on May 24, 2019, unanimously affirmed the dismissal of a proposed class action against subsidiaries of UBS AG, alleging violations of U.S. securities laws for their role as a broker of Enron’s employee stock option plan and for failure to disclose material information about Enron’s “financial manipulations.” Lampkin et al. v. UBS PaineWebber Inc. et al., No. 17-20608 (5th Cir. May 24, 2019).…

Agreements between companies who compete for employees have always been subject to antitrust scrutiny. But recently, “no-poach” agreements—i.e. agreements to not recruit or hire another party’s employees—have become the subject of a recent flurry of government enforcement actions and private class actions. In this article, we discuss the types of no-poach covenants that are permissible, and the possible civil and criminal risks a company faces by entering into an impermissible no-poach agreement. We also discuss…