What happens if the court grants the injunction requested by my employer? Yes. Legally no, but it may give you a hint that the employer does not see the cost and risk of trying to enforce the agreement as worth it. The tentacles of disclosure are very long and can extend to personal texts, emails and indeed those of family members. I work about 15 hours per week and my Employer does not pay me any Mileage from Client to Client. Do they have influence over other employees, or operate as part of a team in circumstances where there would be a real risk if everyone left? Normally businesses deal with this kind of situation by putting a penalty in for customers – so if they take you they pay a sum to represent your employer’s loss so check if one of those exists. The Workplace Fairness Attorney Directory features lawyers from across the United States who primarily represent workers in employment cases. First look at the terms of the non-compete itself. the length of time the employee was employed by the employer. I am after some advice. When looking at geographic scope courts examine the services provided by the employer. Also, there are courts which have relied on state constitutions to limit the ability of employers to restrict an employee from working at all. The best thing would be to not have a non-compete agreement at all. Make it clear, in writing, to new employees who are under covenant from their previous employer, that they must not breach these restrictions. I had a non-compete in my job, but I was fired. These are usually protecting confidential information that you might have which is not in the public domain and which might harm them if you went to a competitor. 6. Make sure restrictive covenants are regularly updated – when an employee is promoted or they change job, ensure that the covenants will still protect the business. If an injunction is granted by the court, this is a legal remedy which can stop you as an employee from working. and how high could my costs be if he won ? You may have very little time to retain an attorney and discuss your case with that person, so make sure that you enlist the help of an experienced employment lawyer as soon as you know that your employer is challenging your actions. Can the new employer enforce the agreement against us? All of us here at work have non-compete agreements, but the company has never enforced them when someone leaves. I have been offered a job in the same industry but in a completely different area from where i work but my current employer has a clause in the contract, saying I cannot work for another pest control company for 12 months after leaving. Don’t forget that any clever attempts to get around restrictive covenants will generally be uncovered during a court case. Liquidated damages are a set sum that the employer and employee agree to as damages if the employee breaches the covenant not to compete. The exception is a ‘radius’ covenant (i.e don’t work within two miles of the office) and even then you have to be able to show that there is a correspondence between the ‘radius’ and the client base. It depends. Before you deliberately choose to violate a non-compete agreement to which you are subject, consult a lawyer who can go over the agreement with you and help you assess an appropriate course of action. This project provides an API Gateway built on top of the Spring Ecosystem, including: Spring 5, Spring Boot 2 and Project Reactor. Is there anything I can do to my employer for trying to enforce a bad covenant not to compete? Look at their specific job, whether they have customer contact (non-solicitation/non-dealing), whether they have knowledge of confidential plans to expand or pricing information (non-compete). Limit it narrowly to the area the employer is really concerned about you working in - not the whole industry or line of work. How long will it take for someone else to develop a relationship with the client?