The Illinois Manufacturer’s Spring 2008 issue included an article on non-compete agreements and the changing role of the “legitimate business interest” in enforcing non-competes. In that article, we predicted that Illinois courts may stop analyzing whether employers have a “legitimate business interest” in seeking to enforce their noncompete agreements and instead focus their attention on whether the agreements are appropriately limited in their scope and duration. Two years later, an Illinois appellate court decision proved that our prediction may be right. The case of Sunbelt Rentals v. Ehlers, 394 Ill. App. 3d 421 (App. Ct. 4th Dist. 2009), rejected the application of the “legitimate business interest” analysis and held a non-compete agreement to be enforceable based only on its geographic scope and time period. Neal Gerber Eisenberg partner and Labor & Employment Practice Group chair David B. Ritter and Labor and Employment Practice Group member Sonya Rosenberg co-authored an article that appears in the Winter 2010 edition of The Illinois Manufacturer.

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