SimplyHR | Employment & Labor Blog 

As two federal courts recognized in February 2015, Illinois law is unsettled as to the duration of continued employment that is sufficient consideration to support a non-compete agreement. In Bankers Life And Casualty v. Miller¹,a February 2015 federal court decision applying Illinois law, the court held that there is no bright line test for the length of continued employment sufficient to support a post-employment restrictive covenant specifically rejecting the argument that employment less than two years is inherently insufficient consideration under Illinois law. And in Cumulus Radio Corporation v. Olson and Alpha Media, the court recognized that the Illinois Supreme Court would likely embrace the same sort of fact specific approach to assessing the adequacy of consideration that it applies to determine whether the restrictions are reasonable.

On February 5, 2015, Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield (“Anthem”) announced that it was the target of a cyber attack that resulted in unauthorized access to Anthem’s IT system. As a result, certain personal information of Anthem’s current and former members may have been compromised. Information that may have been subject to compromise includes member (and former member): names, birthdays, medical IDs/social security numbers, street addresses, email addresses and employment information (including income data). In subsequent media coverage, it has been reported that up to 80 million individuals may have been impacted. It was also reported that information going back to the year 2004 may have been subject to the breach.

It is believed that the Anthem breach is the largest breach involving health information to date.