Massachusetts employers received a meaningful reprieve this month when Governor Maura Healey’s proposal to tighten the Commonwealth’s noncompete statute was dropped from the state’s economic development legislation.
The proposal was part of the administration’s broader Mass Wins initiative, filed on April 16, 2026. The administration cast the measure in part to close what it viewed as a loophole in the Massachusetts Noncompetition Agreement Act (“MNAA”) and would have required that employers provide garden leave or other mutually-agreed consideration of at least equivalent value for a noncompetition agreement entered into at the beginning of or during an employment relationship to be enforceable. But the proposal failed to gain traction on Beacon Hill, and Senate leaders left it out of their version of the economic development bill.
For now, that leaves the existing statutory framework intact, including the MNAA’s allowance for “other mutually-agreed upon consideration” instead of… Read the complete article here...
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