Protecting Your Valuable Employees and Their Information

WASHINGTON, D.C. – May 10, 2006 — Any business is only as good as its employees………and the information that those employees have is precious gold. That’s the general theme of an upcoming webinar by the Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association (SGMA) scheduled for Wednesday, May 24th from 12:00 pm – 2:00 pm (Eastern Time). The globalization of the sports and fitness business, as well as the increased willingness of individuals to move and change companies, has created a major threat to the intellectual integrity of companies around the world. This two-hour webinar will provide answers to the following questions:

• How can you legally and appropriately protect your valuable employees from “poaching” by your competitors?
• How can you protect the precious information about your business that your valued employees have when they try to leave your company?
• What can you legally and appropriately do to prevent a valued employee who leaves your company from competing and obtaining full access to the customers he/she cultivated while employed by your company?
• What must you do to protect your company’s trade secrets, valuable business information and customer lists from ending up in the hands of your competitors?
• What protective measures must you provide for information about your employees and your vendors? What can you do with it? Who can you share it with?

Utilizing webinar technology, SGMA is presenting “Protecting Your Valuable Employees and Their Information” with the needs of today’s busy executive and bottom-line costs in mind. In addition to being able to participate from anywhere with a telephone and an Internet connection, different members of your team in the same location can participate for all or part of the session at no additional cost.

”The key executives of our member companies tell us more and more that retaining employees and their intellectual property is extremely important to their businesses,” said SGMA President Tom Cove. “We look forward to this forum which will be both educational and potentially provocative.”

To participate in this webinar, the charge is $199.00 per location for current SGMA members or $299.00 for non-members. The charge includes a copy of the presentations on a CD.

Other key topics will include:
Tell it to the FBI: Federal criminal liability for theft of trade secrets by former employees
Oops – No Non-Compete Against your Former Employees: Don’t worry, it’s not always a barrier

The webinar will be presented by recruited leading experts of the SGMA Legal Task Force including:

Nicholas Alexander, Morrison Mahoney LLP, Boston, MA
Kirk Nahra, Wiley Rein & Felding LLP, Washington, DC
Bryan K. Shreckengost, Pietragallo Bosick & Gordon LLP
Mark Kisicki, Steptoe & Johnson LLP, Los Angeles, CA

The moderators for this webinar will be Mark Granger and Kevin Maher of Morrison Mahoney LLP, Boston, MA.

To register for “Protecting Your Valuable Employees and Their Information,” go to www.sgma.com or call SGMA at 202-775-1762 for complete details.

The next SGMA webinar will be on August 29th. The theme will be “Maximizing Your Media Spend.”

The Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association, owner of the Sports Research Partnership, is the global business trade association of manufacturers, retailers, and marketers in the sports products industry. SGMA enhances industry vitality and fosters sports, fitness, and active lifestyle participation. More information about SGMA International can be found at www.SGMA.com.
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www.sgma.com 1150 17th Street NW, Suite 850, Washington, DC 20036  p: 202.775.1762 f: 202.296.7462