Articles Tagged with Illinois Freedom to Work Act

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What-Illinois-Business-Owners-Should-Know-About-the-One-Big-Beautiful-Bill-Act-1-300x300Non-compete agreements continue to be one of the most misunderstood areas of employment law for business owners.

Recent headlines about federal regulation led many employers to believe non-competes were banned nationwide. In reality, the situation is more nuanced. While federal regulators have attempted sweeping changes, Illinois law still primarily governs when and how non-compete agreements can be used.

For employers, understanding these rules is important. Improperly drafted or implemented agreements can become unenforceable and may even expose businesses to legal risk.

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What-Illinois-Business-Owners-Should-Know-About-the-One-Big-Beautiful-Bill-Act-300x300Many business owners heard headlines saying the Federal Trade Commission “banned non-competes” and assumed restrictive covenants were essentially over.

That is not what ultimately happened.

While the FTC attempted to implement a sweeping nationwide ban, that rule never took effect. Courts blocked it, the appeals process ended, and the agency later removed the rule from federal regulations. As a result, there is no nationwide prohibition on non-compete agreements in 2026.

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New Laws, New Year Part 2

Illinois small businesses need to get up to speed on a variety of state legislation passed in the previous session that came online on January 1.

We covered several new provisions in a post last week, including a higher state minimum wage and legislation prohibiting “capture audience meetings” focused on religion or politics, requiring “pay scale and benefits” information in all job postings, adding new requirements for businesses that want to employ children under age 16, and banning non-compete agreements for certain classes of workers.

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Illinois Employers Face New Laws 2025

Guest Author: Kelsey Feucht, Associate Attorney with Bellas & Wachowski

Illinois small businesses need to get up to speed on a variety of state legislation – particularly employment laws – which became effective on January 1.

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Illinois Freedom to Work Act 

Illinois Employers who want to protect their business and trade secrets by using restrictive employment contracts will find new hoops to jump through.   The enforcement of non-compete and non-solicit agreements, designed to erect roadblocks to prevent former employees from gaining an unfair advantage due to their proprietary knowledge of your business or relationships with your customers, has always been tricky.  But a recent law will make it more complicated.

An amendment to the Illinois Freedom to Work Act that will take effect on January 1, 2022, will create new hurdles for business owners hoping to prevent employees who have left on frosty terms from exploiting their knowledge of customer contacts, pricing and other trade secrets that could enable them to take shortcuts to parity as your adversary.

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