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Christine B. Hawes

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Christine B. Hawes is a counsel in Crowell & Moring's Labor & Employment Group. Christine's practice focuses on litigation of individual and class actions arising in all areas of labor and employment law, including:

  • Wage-and-hour laws, including the Fair Labor Standards Act, the Service Contract Act, and state and local laws
  • Title VII and state anti-discrimination laws
  • Americans with Disabilities Act
  • Family and Medical Leave Act and related state statutes
  • Federal and state whistleblower statutes, including the False Claims Act
  • Alleged wrongful termination
  • Non-competition agreements and other employee contracts
  • Misappropriation of trade secrets claims

Christine also provides counseling to clients on a wide variety of employment issues, including personnel policies, non-competition/non-solicitation agreements, employee discipline, contract disputes, and alleged retaliation under the False Claims Act, Title VII, the FLSA, and state whistleblower statutes. Christine frequently advises clients on and conducts internal investigations that frequently address employment, ethics, and compliance issues.  Additionally, Christine assists clients with affirmative action compliance, preparing affirmative action plans, analyzing compensation practices, and providing counseling in connection with Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs audits.

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Crowell & Moring presented a webinar discussing the most influential trade secret cases from 2021 along with new legal developments, including non-compete legislation and trade secret maintenance.

Partner Astor Heaven and Counsel Raija Horstman kicked off the conversation to discuss modern trade secret protection under the DTSA and the biggest damages from jury verdicts in 2021. Counsel Christine Hawes gave an overview of recent federal and state non-compete legislation, and Associate Dalton Hughes wrapped up the webinar by covering new legal implications for maintaining and identifying trade secrets.
Continue Reading Crowell & Moring Webinar Recap: “2021 Trade Secrets Year in Review and What Lies Ahead”

The Ninth Circuit recently issued an opinion that serves as a reminder of the importance of developing robust affirmative evidence of damages suffered as a consequence of trade secret misappropriation, including the causation of those damages. In Joshua David Mellberg LLC v. Will, the plaintiffs filed an action against its former employees and their new company for misappropriation of trade secrets and unjust enrichment. The district court granted summary judgment to defendants and the Ninth Circuit affirmed.
Continue Reading Ninth Circuit Reminds Plaintiffs That Trade Secret Misappropriation Damages Without Adequate Proof of Causation Are Not Enough

Bolsinger is still pitching! After a recent dismissal for lack of jurisdiction in California, former Major League Baseball pitcher Michael Bolsinger refiled claims against the Houston Astros in state court in Houston, Texas on May 13, 2021.  While asserting similar factual allegations as his original California complaint, the former Toronto Blue Jays pitcher has abandoned his previous unfair business practice causes of action in favor of claims for trade secret misappropriation under the Texas Uniform Trade Secrets Act and for conversion. Bolsinger claims that the pitching signs he used during his August 4, 2017 game against the Astros were trade secrets.
Continue Reading Major League … Misappropriation?

As predicted, the trade secrets battle between Olaplex, Inc. and L’Oreal continues – and L’Oreal has scored a fresh victory.  On May 6, 2021, the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a $66 million judgment against L’Oreal and ordered a new trial – but only on one of Olaplex’s patent claims.  The panel stated that Olaplex had entirely failed to show that its information was eligible for trade-secret protection, and that no reasonable jury could find otherwise.
Continue Reading Partial Victory for L’Oreal In Hair Coloring Fight

Defendants may be entitled to review proprietary software code used in the prosecution’s expert probabilistic DNA analysis, according to a New Jersey appeals court in New Jersey v. Pickett.

In 2017, defendant Corey Pickett and an accomplice were arrested and charged with first degree murder after they allegedly fired weapons into a crowd, wounding one victim and killing another.  In the course of the arrest, the police discovered a revolver and a ski mask.  Finding the samples inappropriate for traditional DNA analysis, swabs from the revolver and ski mask were sent to Cybergenetics Corp.’s Laboratory to use its TrueAllele software to run probabilistic genotyping analysis on the samples.  The TrueAllele software determined that Pickett was the source of the DNA on the revolver and ski mask.Continue Reading New Jersey Appeals Court Rules that Defendant Can Review the Proprietary DNA Analysis Software That Linked Him to the Crime

Recent United States Department of Justice (“DOJ”) indictments of Chinese hackers provide a reminder that trade secrets and other intellectual property stored on databases are attractive targets to bad actors. The DOJ announced that seven international defendants were charged in connection with computer intrusion campaigns impacting more than 100 victims in the United States and abroad.

The victims of the cyberattacks included software development companies, computer hardware manufacturers, telecommunications providers, social media companies, video game companies, non-profit organizations, universities, think tanks, and foreign governments. The hacking facilitated the theft of source code, software code signing certificates, customer account data, and other valuable business information. These cyberattacks also enabled the defendants’ other criminal schemes, including ransomware attacks and “crypto-jacking” schemes, which involve the unauthorized use of victim computers to “mine” cryptocurrency.Continue Reading DOJ Indictment of Chinese Hackers for Break-Ins at 100 Companies Reinforces The Importance of Protecting Trade Secrets and Implementing Security Protections

On July 21, 2020, the First Circuit clarified the high burden that a plaintiff faces when asserting that certain types of business materials are protected trade secrets. In TLS Mgmt. & Mktg. Servs., LLC v. Rodriguez-Toledo, No. 19-1104, 2020 WL 4187246, at *6 (1st Cir. July 21, 2020), the court reversed a district court’s bench trial verdict in favor of the plaintiff in a trade secret misappropriation case on the ground that the business materials at issue did not constitute trade secrets. Plaintiff TLS Management and Marketing Services, LLC, a Puerto Rico-based tax planning and consulting firm, argued that the defendants misappropriated two of its protectable trade secrets: (1) a portion of its “Capital Preservation Reports,” which contained tax recommendations specific to an individual TLS client based on an analysis of applicable statutes and regulations; and (2) its “U.S. Possession Strategy,” which consisted of a scheme that would allow Plaintiff’s clients to take advantage of a lower tax rate on outsourced services by contracting with Plaintiff and buying its shares.

Defendant Rodriguez-Toledo was the founder of Plaintiff’s competitor, Defendant ASG Accounting Solutions Group, Inc., and for some time worked for Plaintiff TLS as a Managing Director under a subcontract between Plaintiff and ASG. After departing from TLS, Rodriguez-Toledo provided tax advice to Plaintiff’s former clients regarding how to avoid certain tax penalties triggered by terminating their relationships with TLS, which TLS’s U.S. Possession Strategy was also intended to avoid. Rodriguez-Toledo also allegedly downloaded the Capital Preservation Reports from TLS’s Dropbox account without authorization before he left TLS. TLS filed suit against both ASG and Rodriguez-Toledo for misappropriation of the two trade secrets and violation of a nondisclosure agreement. The district court found they had misappropriated both trade secrets following a bench trial, and the defendants appealed.Continue Reading First Circuit Reverses Misappropriation Verdict, Citing Lack of Specificity

A federal judge in Colorado declined to sanction Plaintiff DTC Energy Group Inc. (“DTC”) for disclosing information governed by a civil protective order. DTC Energy Group, Inc. v. Hirschfeld, 1:17-cv-01718 (D. Colo. July 27, 2020).

DTC, a consulting and staffing firm serving the oil and gas industry across the United States, filed suit in July 2017 against Defendants Ally Consulting, LLC (“Ally”), a former business partner and direct competitor of DTC, and two former DTC employees.

The amended complaint alleged a variety of claims, including trade secret misappropriation, unfair competition, breach of employment contract, and civil conspiracy to steal trade secrets.

During  discovery, and subject to an oral protective order issued by the court, Ally produced to DTC documents and information that contained certain of Ally’s trade secrets.  DTC later shared documents produced as “confidential” in the litigation with both its outside criminal attorney and with a Denver assistant district attorney after receiving a grand jury subpoena for those documents.  Ally and the other defendants accused DTC of malfeasance and of willful violation of the protective order, and sought sanctions in the  litigation.Continue Reading Caught between a rock and a hard place; that is, a subpoena and a protective order

A trade secrets spat between rival self-driving car companies WeRide Corp. and AllRide.AI Inc. has ended in settlement, but not before the Northern District of California imposed terminating sanctions against the defendant AllRide for its “staggering” spoliation of evidence when it intentionally purged emails and email accounts, wiped laptops and servers, and corrupted key source code.

The suit began in late 2018, when WeRide brought claims against Jing Wang (its former CEO), Kun Huang (its former Head of Hardware Technology), and AllRide, the competing company started by Wang and Huang. The claims included trade secrets allegations under the Defend Trade Secrets Act and the California Uniform Trade Secrets Act, along with claims for defamation and intentional interference with prospective economic advantage. WeRide accused Wang, who left WeRide to launch AllRide, of soliciting Huang to join him at his new company, and accused both of stealing WeRide’s trade secrets and immediately using them at AllRide. In April 2019 the Court granted WeRide a preliminary injunction that specifically prohibited Wang, Huang, and AllRide from destroying relevant documents, and ordered Huang to make several electronic devices available for inspection by WeRide. But in October 2019, WeRide moved the Court for sanctions, claiming that AllRide had destroyed emails and key source code. Central to WeRide’s motion was the accusation that AllRide had allowed its email system to continue to implement a 90-day automatic deletion policy, resulting in the destruction of thousands of potentially relevant emails. WeRide also accused AllRide of deleting six email accounts and the source code it supposedly developed to compete with WeRide.
Continue Reading Autonomous Vehicle Competitors Resolve Trade Secrets Case Colored by “Staggering” Spoliation

Are non-competes still enforceable in middle of the unprecedented economic disruption caused by COVID-19? Many employers have reacted to the business impact of COVID-19 by downsizing and laying off employees, some of whom signed non-compete agreements or restrictive covenants to protect the employer’s legitimate business interests, including its trade secrets and confidential information. Those same businesses now are left wondering whether those non-compete agreements are enforceable in the wake of massive unemployment triggered by the pandemic.

The answer to this question is complex, and depends on state law, public policy, and the terms of the specific agreements. Each state scrutinizes non-competes and restrictive covenants differently and, therefore, the answer may be different depending on where the business and employee are located or the agreement’s choice of law provision.
Continue Reading Non-Compete Agreements and Restrictive Covenants During COVID-19