Compliance Stuff

Employers will soon be obligated to provide employees with severance benefits if they want to have an enforceable noncompete in Virginia and they also will be prohibited from entering into noncompetes with health care professionals, except in connection with the sale of a business. These obligations and several other new restrictions are part of  Senate Bill 170  and  House Bill 627 , landmark legislation recently passed by the General Assembly and slated to take effect on July 1, 2026. The new noncompete legislation applies to  all  employees and categorically bans noncompetes for almost all health care professionals, in sharp contrast to Virginia’s existing noncompete statutes, which currently cover only low-wage employees, including hourly employees. Moreover, because of recent case law from the Court of Appeals of Virginia in  Sentry Force Security, LLC v. Barrera , 2026 WL 200848 (Va. Ct. App. Jan. 27, 2026), the new legislation will also apply to co...

The Court of Appeals of Virginia just issued a surprising ruling that expands the state’s statute banning non-competes for low-wage employees to also include some non-solicitation agreements. The January 27 decision in  Sentry Force Security, LLC v. Barrera  should cause employers in Virginia to revisit their restrictive covenant strategy. Here is what employers need to know and a list of action items you should consider. Enforceability of Non-Solicitation Agreements Against Low-Wage Employees In 2020, the Virginia legislature enacted a law prohibiting employers from entering into or enforcing a post-employment “covenant not to compete” against “low-wage” employees, defined as any employee earning less than the average weekly wage in the Commonwealth ($1507.01 per week in 2026), with limited exceptions.   Lawmakers amended the statute  in 2025 to expand the prohibition to cover any employee who is non-exempt under the Fair Labor Standards Act.  You can read more...