Re: FN-FORUM: Advertising Bastards

date posted 11th January 2006 11:00

On Wed, Jan 11, 2006 at 11:18:11AM -0000, Graeme J Sweeney wrote:
>
> On Wed, 11 Jan 2006, CreativeNRG.co.uk wrote:
>
> >Read your contract and see where you stand with regards to the customers
> >you have been working with and local competition as one of my previous
> >contracts had a clause in it preventing me from working for competitors
> >within a 20 miles radius for a period of time after my employment ended.
>
> So your employer terminates your contract but still holds you to a
> specific term and condition after you've left?
>
> I've often wondered about these sort of clauses: they're not actually
> enforcable, are they!?

This has been discussed over 20 years that I remember; the general concensus is
that they are not because if they were you would be unable to 'ply your trade'.
The point is that most of us are specialised and if we are to work and wish to
use our skills (ie work without taking a drop in income) we are likely to end up
working with a competitor of a past employer.

I would just ignore such clauses - let them make a fuss if they want to.

If you get very high up the management ladder these things may become important
(think: the recent case of M$ sueing google for poaching a China specialist).

Clauses that prevent you taking customers with you are reasonable, but not ones
that prevent you from working -- unless the (ex)employer wishes to pay you to
not work.

As always: the time to negotiate away such clauses is when you have bargening
power - when they want you to start working for them.

--
Alain Williams
Parliament Hill Computers Ltd.
Linux Consultant - Mail systems, Web sites, Networking, Programmer, IT Lecturer.
+44 (0) 787 668 0256 http://www.phcomp.co.uk/

#include