This Law Firm Publication by Epstein Becker & Green, P.C. discusses Acordia of Ohio, L.L.C. v. Fishel, in which the Ohio Supreme Court held that when a company that was the original party to a non-compete merges into another company, unless the non-compete contained a “successors and assigns” clause, the merger is a termination of employment which triggers the running of the non-compete's restrictive period. The court noted that the surviving company could have protected its business interests by requiring employees to sign new non-competes as a condition of their continued at-will employment. The ruling also implied that if the non-compete had included the type of “successors and assigns” language commonly found in non-competes, the outcome may have been different.On October 11, 2012, the Ohio Supreme Court issued a new decision in this case on reconsideration holding that the employer "has the right to enforce the employees' noncompete agreements as if it had stepped into the shoes of the original contracting companies."