Executive Summary: A company that terminates an employee — even if it offers the employee the chance to apply for a position with the company’s successor — cannot enforce restrictive covenants over that employee, a New York appeals court recently held. In Buchanan Capital Markets, LLC v. DeLucca, 144 A.D.3d 508 (2016), the First Department affirmed a lower court’s denial of a preliminary injunction seeking to enforce non-compete and non-solicitation agreements against four employees. The lower court found the employees were terminated without cause prior to a corporate merger. The appeals court held that allowing the employees the chance to apply to the successor entity, with no guarantee of future employment, was insufficient to show a continued willingness to employ the employees that merited the protection of injunctive relief.
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