On January 8, 2026, Weil won a decisive victory for Interpublic Group of Companies (IPG), a major global advertising and marketing holding company, in a significant restrictive covenant dispute against competitor Fifth Element and two former senior IPG executives who left to join Fifth Element. After expedited discovery and two hours of oral argument, Judge Joel M. Cohen in the New York Supreme Court’s Commercial Division granted IPG’s motion for a preliminary injunction from the bench and then subsequently entered a Preliminary Injunction Order on January 28, 2026.

The case stems from the simultaneous departure of the former IPG senior executives to competitor Fifth Element, and their subsequent and immediate solicitation of at least eight additional former IPG employees and at least two of IPG’s major customers.    

Following argument, Judge Cohen ruled from the bench that IPG had met the requirements for a preliminary injunction and that defendants had misleadingly created optics to suggest compliance but that in reality (given texts and admissions at deposition during expedited discovery) they were behaving unrestrained. Thus, there was a significant need for an injunction that would “put the defendants in a box and not allow them to solicit or service the customers they previously worked with for the full one year term of the restriction.” Judge Cohen further agreed that an injunction was all the more important given IPG’s recent sale to Omnicom, which defendants were looking to take advantage of at a time when the company was most at risk of losing its customer good will and confidential information.

Notably, the court issued the preliminary injunction in Weil’s client’s favor after initially denying a motion for a temporary injunction, but granted the request for expedited discovery that proved essential to the client’s PI motion. Weil was also successful in keeping expedited discovery almost entirely one-sided. 

Weil’s Employment Practice Head John Barry and Employment partner Celine Chan successfully argued the preliminary injunction motion for IPG. The broader Weil team included Employment associates Lauren Kelly, Paige Mickel, Jon Greenstein and several paralegals, including Employment paralegal Mia Griffiths.