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Jillian Ambrose

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Jillian Ambrose is a Labor & Employment Group associate in Crowell & Moring’s Washington, D.C. office. Prior to joining the firm, Jillian served as a law clerk to Judge Anthony Epstein and then to Judge Steven M. Wellner, both of the D.C. Superior Court. Before law school, Jillian was an analyst in the human capital practice of an international consulting firm, where she provided management consulting services to a portfolio of federal agency clients.

Jillian’s practice focuses on litigation of individual and class actions arising in all areas of labor and employment law. She provides counseling to clients on a variety of employment issues, including non-competition/non-solicitation agreements and contract disputes. She also 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. Jillian has substantial experience in representing employers in wage & hour litigation and in conducting audits and compliance review of employer wage & hour policies and procedures.

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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

A Complaint recently filed in the Southern District of New York may shed light on courts’ willingness to apply a broad interpretation of “misappropriation” in trade secrets cases. Plaintiff Greenpoint Capital Management, which grants loans to law firms to fund high-stakes litigation, has accused Apollo Hybrid Value Management LP and Apollo Hybrid Value Management GP…

A new indictment alleging misappropriation of U.S. oil and gas trade secrets by a Chinese energy company, its U.S.-based affiliate, and an executive is another example in a recent string of prosecutions for trade secrets theft involving China, a topic that we have covered on the blog here.
Continue Reading Grand Jury Indicts Chinese Energy Company, U.S. Oil and Gas Affiliate, and Chinese National on Trade Secrets Charges

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

For the first time, a United States federal court has held that a civil action for private damages under the Defend Trade Secrets Act (“DTSA”) can arise from acts of misappropriation that occur completely outside the United States – as long as they have a nexus with some activities within the U.S. In Motorola Sols., Inc. v. Hytera Commc’ns Corp., Ltd., No. 1:17-cv-1973 (N.D. Ill. Mar. 6, 2020) (an earlier decision in this case was previously discussed on this blog here), Motorola alleged that Hytera Communications, a Chinese company, hired away three engineers who then took with them Motorola trade secrets, including thousands of Motorola’s confidential technical documents containing millions of lines of source code and other highly confidential information.
Continue Reading After Motorola Verdict, DTSA Has Extraterritorial Application

Pay equity continues to be one of the most significant workforce issues facing employers today. Pay equity laws aim to increase transparency into employers’ pay practices – with the ultimate goal of ensuring that employees are paid fairly regardless of demographic factors including race and gender. However, they may also require employers to release sensitive, propriety information about internal pay practices – which arguably constitute trade secrets – potentially compromising employers’ ability to remain competitive in hiring and retaining top talent. See, e.g., In re High-Tech Employee Antitrust Litig., No. 11-cv-02509, 2013 WL 163779, at *2, 5 (N.D. Cal. Jan. 15, 2013) (explaining that trade secrets include “sources of business information that might harm a litigant’s competitive standing,” including “confidential information regarding . . . recruitment strategies, policies, and procedures, [and] quantitative data concerning those topics”).
Continue Reading Trade Secret Implications For Pay Scale Provisions