The Departing Employee: Enforcing Restrictive Covenants and Protecting Trade Secrets After the FTC’s Exit and the State Ban Wave

Varant Yegparian, Founding Partner | Yegparian PLLC

Varant Yegparian is the Founding Partner of Yegparian PLLC, an Austin, Texas trial boutique that represents companies and individuals in complex commercial, technology, and construction disputes. A trial lawyer with nearly two decades of courtroom experience at AmLaw 100 firms and Chambers-ranked litigation boutiques, Mr. Yegparian has taken more than ten commercial matters to verdict or final award and has handled more than twenty disputes with over $5 million at stake. His practice centers on technology disputes — trade secret theft, software and systems failures, and founder and partnership fights — alongside large-scale construction litigation, and he builds every case from the first day as though it will be tried. He litigates in all four federal districts in Texas, the Texas state trial courts, and the Texas courts of appeals.

• Education & Credentials

Mr. Yegparian earned his J.D. with honors from the University of Texas School of Law in 2009, where he served as Articles Editor of The Review of Litigation, and his B.A. with honors from the University of Texas at Austin in 2005, graduating summa cum laude from the Plan II Honors Program. A former competitive debater, he went on to coach the University of Texas debate team. He is admitted to practice in Texas and before the U.S. District Courts for the Western, Eastern, Northern, and Southern Districts of Texas.

• Recognition & Leadership

Mr. Yegparian was named a Future Litigation Star by Benchmark Litigation in 2025 after being selected to its 40 & Under List in 2024. He has been selected to the Texas Super Lawyers list for Business Litigation every year from 2023 through 2026, following his recognition as a Texas Rising Star in 2019. Before founding his own firm, he was a partner at Hicks Johnson PLLC (formerly Schiffer Hicks Johnson), a Chambers-ranked Houston trial boutique, where he regularly handled claims involving emerging technology, including smart infrastructure and new biomedical processes.

• Professional Involvement

Mr. Yegparian is a member of the Houston Bar Association, the Austin Bar Association, the Texas Young Lawyers Association, and the Texas Bar Foundation. He is a prolific author and CLE presenter on trade secret litigation. His three-part series, “How Should Litigators Establish Evidence in Trade Secret Cases?” (2023), walks practitioners through the proof required to establish liability, damages, and evidence under Texas common law and the Texas Uniform Trade Secrets Act, and his recent publications include “Auditing Trade Secret Policies and Practices: A Checklist” (2026), “Trade Secret Litigation: Seven Insights for In-House Counsel” (2025), and “AI and the Reconfiguration of Trade Secret Litigation” (2026). His recent CLE presentations include “Monetary Damages for Misappropriation of Trade Secrets: Traditional and New Methodologies for Fair Compensation” (2026), “Navigating Trade Secret Litigation: A Guide for In-House Counsel” (2025), “Litigating AI: Understanding Litigation Over Enterprise Implementation of Artificial Intelligence” (2026), “Trade Secrets Law and Remote Workers” (HospitalityLawyer.com), and “AI and the Reconfiguration of Trade Secret Litigation: A Practical Guide for In-House Counsel,” which he presents for In-House Connect in October 2026.

• Experience

Mr. Yegparian’s trade secret work spans both sides of the docket. He took a national health clinic’s trade secret claim through arbitration to a seven-figure award that included attorney’s fees and punitive damages; secured an early dismissal of trade secret theft and unfair competition claims brought against a cloud computing AI startup; and, after a week-long arbitration, won a full dismissal of all claims concerning a global telecommunications company’s billing technology — with both defense wins including awards of attorneys’ fees exceeding six figures. He also won a $50 million summary judgment for a large U.S. city in a dispute over a $2 billion water infrastructure project, leading to a favorable settlement, and he has secured full-liability jury verdicts, take-nothing defense verdicts, and pre-trial settlements for plaintiffs and defendants alike. Having tried, arbitrated, and written extensively about how trade secret misappropriation is proven and valued — and how the departing-employee fact pattern plays out in Texas state and federal courts — Mr. Yegparian is uniquely positioned to guide practitioners through enforcing restrictive covenants and protecting trade secrets after the FTC’s exit and the state ban wave.

Brian E. Spang, Member of the Firm | Epstein Becker & Green, P.C.

Brian E. Spang is a Member of the Firm in the Chicago office of Epstein Becker Green, where he practices in the firm’s Employment, Labor & Workforce Management group and its Trade Secrets & Employee Mobility practice. For 27 years he has represented employers in disputes over trade secret misappropriation, restrictive covenant enforcement, and employee mobility, handling emergency temporary restraining order and injunction proceedings as well as full-merits litigation, and he counsels employers on restrictive covenants, non-solicitation agreements, hiring from competitors, and incentive compensation plans. His clients range from startups to Fortune 50 financial services, insurance, technology, and health care companies, and he describes his approach as finding the shortest path to the best result for employers in complex, high-exposure litigation.

• Education & Credentials

Mr. Spang earned his J.D., magna cum laude, from the University of Illinois College of Law in 1997, where he served as Administrative Editor of The Elder Law Journal, and his A.B. with honors from the College of William & Mary in 1994. Following law school, he clerked for U.S. Magistrate Judge Roger B. Cosbey of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Indiana. He is admitted to the Illinois bar; the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the Second, Third, Seventh, Eighth, and Ninth Circuits; and the U.S. District Courts for the Northern District of Illinois (including its Trial Bar), the Central District of Illinois, the Northern District of Indiana, and the Eastern and Western Districts of Michigan.

• Recognition & Leadership

Mr. Spang has been recognized by The Legal 500 United States for Workplace and Employment Counseling and for Labor and Employment Disputes (Including Collective Actions): Defense (2018 and 2019). He rejoined Epstein Becker Green in June 2026 after four years as a partner in the Labor, Employment, and Workplace Safety practice at K&L Gates, where firm leadership described his practice as sitting at the cutting edge of the most complex employment issues facing companies today. Outside the firm, he served as Member and Secretary of the Board of Directors of Volunteers of America Illinois (2018–2023) and as Volunteer Coach, Member, and Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Downers Grove DOLLS Youth Fastpitch Softball organization (2011–2021).

• Professional Involvement

Mr. Spang is a frequent author and CLE presenter on noncompete and trade secret developments, with a particular focus on the state-level reforms that now govern restrictive covenants. His publications include “Trade Secrets Law 25 Years After PepsiCo Disclosure Case” (Law360, 2021), “A Comprehensive Reform of Noncompete and Nonsolicit Law in Illinois” (2021), “Illinois Noncompete Reform Balances Employee and Biz Interests” (2021), “Employers with Illinois Employees: Revise Form Noncompete and Nonsolicitation Provisions Before January 1, 2022” (2021), “Illinois Attorney General’s Office on the Lookout for Unlawful No-Poach Agreements” (2021), “Lucky Seven: Rhode Island the Seventh State to Pass a Statute Governing Non-Compete Agreements During 2019” (2019), “Delaware Choice of Law Clause Unenforceable Against Nebraska Employee: A Cautionary Tale” (2020), and “Protecting Key Employees, Trade Secrets in the Post-COVID-19 Job Market” (2020). His presentations include “Your Non-Compete Agreements May Not Comply with New Illinois Law” (2021), “Both Sides of the Coin: Protecting Your Own Workforce and Trade Secrets from Potential Raiders” (2021), “Trends and New Developments Employers Face Protecting Trade Secrets from Insider Threats” (2018), “Practical Tips for Minimizing Litigation Risk When Hiring from a Competitor” (2018), and “2017 Year in Review: Trade Secrets and Non-Compete Developments,” and he has been featured on Epstein Becker Green’s Employment Law This Week and its podcast episode “The Future of Non-Compete Agreements.”

• Experience

Mr. Spang has spent his career on both sides of the departing-employee dispute. He has obtained temporary restraining orders against departing employees who solicited clients or misused confidential information, and he has defeated TRO and preliminary injunction motions brought against clients that hired talent from competitors — including defeating a TRO sought against an insurance broker that hired a 25-person group from a rival and then securing dismissal of seven of the eight claims asserted. He defended a banker in a JAMS arbitration over alleged misuse of trade secret client information, winning an award that rejected the claim and imposed costs on the bank; defended a proprietary trading firm against a $50 million trade secret damages claim in JAMS arbitration, which the arbitrator rejected; won summary judgment for a national facility maintenance company and its employee on trade secret misappropriation and Computer Fraud and Abuse Act claims; and represented a Fortune 100 financial services company in a FINRA arbitration that produced a $20 million award of compensatory and punitive damages. His employment defense record includes defeating FLSA conditional certification for a Fortune 50 national bank, summary judgments affirmed on appeal for Fortune 50 and Fortune 500 employers, and a Rule 12(b)(6) dismissal of a New York criminal-history screening class action under Section 19 of the Federal Deposit Insurance Act. Having drafted, enforced, and defended against restrictive covenants for employers from startups to Fortune 50 companies — and having tracked the Illinois Freedom to Work Act amendments and the state-by-state noncompete wave in real time — Mr. Spang is uniquely positioned to show employers’ counsel how to enforce restrictive covenants and protect trade secrets after the FTC’s exit and the state ban wave.

SESSION 1 – The 2026 Landscape: What Employers Can Still Enforce, Where, and Against Whom | Brian E. Spang | 2:30pm – 3:30pm

This session maps what employers can still enforce after the FTC and the state ban wave: case-by-case federal enforcement, outright prohibitions, income thresholds, notice and consideration requirements, and the penalty statutes that turn an unenforceable clause into employer liability. It draws lessons from Illinois, where the Freedom to Work Act amendments reshaped form agreements, and examines what courts in reform states are actually enforcing. Attendees will work through the industry flashpoints in financial services (FINRA arbitration, the Broker Protocol, and client non-solicits), healthcare clinician restrictions, and technology talent; counseling the new employer that hires from a competitor on onboarding, certifications, and team lift-outs to avoid raiding, misappropriation, and tortious-interference claims; and the multistate and remote workforce, where choice-of-law and forum-selection clauses are under attack and the question is which state’s law governs when the employee, employer, and customers are in different places.

BREAK | 3:30pm – 3:40pm

SESSION 2 – When the Key Employee Leaves: Alternatives, Enforcement, and the First 72 Hours | Varant Yegparian | 3:40pm – 4:40pm

This session moves beyond the noncompete to the tools that still work and where: customer and employee non-solicits, confidentiality covenants, garden leave, notice periods, and forfeiture-for-competition. It treats trade secrets as the enforcement backbone, covering how to build the DTSA/UTSA case, the reasonable-measures evidence, and why the protection program must exist before the departure. Attendees will leave with the departure playbook, from preservation and forensic review of devices and cloud accounts to exit interviews and certifications and the demand letter that sets up the case, and with a working command of TRO and preliminary-injunction practice in covenant and trade-secret cases: what judges want to see, what loses, and the bond and fee-shifting exposure.