My wife's employment contract has a clause which can be interpreted
(the wording is not very clear) as saying that if she leaves the
company she cannot work for a competing firm for a period of six months
afterwards. Would such a clause be legally enforceable?

My wife's employment contract has a clause which can be interpreted
(the wording is not very clear) as saying that if she leaves the
company she cannot work for a competing firm for a period of six
months afterwards. Would such a clause be legally enforceable?

The exact wording of the clause if crucial as well as information about the
kind of business. Without that information nobody can tell.

Peter Crosland

On Tue, 7 Nov 2006 11:20:06 +0000, "Marco"
wrote:

My wife's employment contract has a clause which can be interpreted
(the wording is not very clear) as saying that if she leaves the
company she cannot work for a competing firm for a period of six months
afterwards. Would such a clause be legally enforceable?


Probably.

We would have to see the clause, and it would depend on the exact
circumstances. It is by no means certain.

But in principle, such clauses are legal provided they are not of too
long a duration.
--
Alex Heney, Global Villager
Earth is 98% full... please delete anyone you can.
To reply by email, my address is alexATheneyDOTplusDOTcom

Marco wrote:

My wife's employment contract has a clause which can be interpreted
(the wording is not very clear) as saying that if she leaves the
company she cannot work for a competing firm for a period of six months
afterwards. Would such a clause be legally enforceable?

We have a similar one in our Contract at work.When I joined the Company,
it was purely a photographic services company, we have expanded, and now
do many types of vending machines, including toys,sweets,mobile phone
chargers etc.
The Clause says something like you cannot work for another Company in
the same line of business for 3 months on leaving.

I asked my Union rep about it once, and he said there was no way they
could stop me joining another photo or vending company, as the clause is
so restricitive and wide ranging, that it would be unenforceable.

Obviously depends on your circumstances, if you were the only Company to
be able to clone humans successfully, then such a clause would be
required to stop people leaving and taking the secrets with them.
Alan.
--
To reply by e-mail, change the ' + ' to 'plus'.

Marco wrote:
My wife's employment contract has a clause which can be interpreted
(the wording is not very clear) as saying that if she leaves the
company she cannot work for a competing firm for a period of six months
afterwards. Would such a clause be legally enforceable?

Perhaps. Such clauses are not uncommon, but it is a question for the
Courts whether they are enforceable.

There are a variety of considerations that are taken in to account when
deciding whether such a term is enforceable. These include, for
example, the nature of her job; her seniority; how close her
relationship is with the businesses customers; what, if any,
geographical restrictions are included in the clause.

Without further details about her job, the nature of the business and
so on it is impossible to give anything other than an equivocal answer.

"Alex Heney" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 7 Nov 2006 11:20:06 +0000, "Marco"
wrote:

My wife's employment contract has a clause which can be interpreted
(the wording is not very clear) as saying that if she leaves the
company she cannot work for a competing firm for a period of six months
afterwards. Would such a clause be legally enforceable?


Probably.

We would have to see the clause, and it would depend on the exact
circumstances. It is by no means certain.

But in principle, such clauses are legal provided they are not of too
long a duration.
--
Alex Heney, Global Villager
Earth is 98% full... please delete anyone you can.
To reply by email, my address is alexATheneyDOTplusDOTcom

Six months is the outside limit of what might be enforceable in most cases -
I certainly wouldn't say it's "probably" enforceable. And if the wording
isn't clear that will certainly count against the employer. In principle
such clauses are void unless reasonable to protect legitimate interests of
the employer.

Chris R

As it's a contract of employment, when your employment ends, doesn't the
contract too! Just wondered like...
And in any case, what would/could happen? They sue you for damages of some
kind?


They would issue an injunction against the company you were going to work
for, and threaten to claim damages from them.

I have done this in the past with an employee who tried to ignore the
provisions of his contract - it worked & protected the business for 3
months.


SalesGuy

Mike wrote:


As it's a contract of employment, when your employment ends, doesn't the
contract too! Just wondered like...
And in any case, what would/could happen? They sue you for damages of some kind?

Their primary remedy that they would seek would probably be an
injunction, but damages also.

The courts are generally unwilling to enforce clauses restricting
employees' ability to change employment.
Six months *anywhere* is probably too wide-ranging to be enforceable;
six months *within 20 miles* is probably enforceable - depending on
where you are, if you only have one major town within 20 miles it might
still be too restrictive.

IANAL and just thinking out loud...

Should there not be some sort of remuneration agreement in such cases
for the interim period - without such, could a previous employment
contract be enforced ?

Colin Wilson wrote:
The courts are generally unwilling to enforce clauses restricting
employees' ability to change employment.
Six months *anywhere* is probably too wide-ranging to be enforceable;
six months *within 20 miles* is probably enforceable - depending on
where you are, if you only have one major town within 20 miles it might
still be too restrictive.

IANAL and just thinking out loud...

Should there not be some sort of remuneration agreement in such cases
for the interim period - without such, could a previous employment
contract be enforced ?

The short answer is yes, it is possible to enforce these clauses
without payment in the meantime. However, they can be tricky to
enforce. If you really want to stop someone working the better option
is to put them on garden leave, in which case you do still have to pay
them.