MA Senate Passes Noncompete Reform Bill

Here is significant news on the MA noncompete reform front.  Yesterday, as the Massachusetts legislature's Joint Committee on Economic Development and Emerging Technology was hearing testimony on the pros and cons of non-competition agreements, and the Governor's Secretary of Housing and Economic Development was signalling a willingness to compromise, the Senate somewhat surprisingly passed a recently introduced compromise bill, by a vote of 31 to 7.  This is a significant departure from the outright ban proposed by the Governor and advocated by various groups.  Here is a summary of the bill.  I will post the bill itself soon.

• Applies to employee non-competition agreements, which includes "forfeiture for competition agreements" (whereby employee forfeits compensation if employee competes)