Restricted covenants & team moves
Our employment lawyers understand that protecting your assets such as confidential information and trade secrets is a priority and fundamental to your company’s success. We have extensive experience advising employers in situations involving restrictive covenants, team moves and injunctions.
The departure of a valued employee or team often raises sensitive and complex legal issues which need to be addressed as a matter of urgency.
Our team can help you protect these assets from the outset by drafting reasonable, workable intellectual property rights clauses, confidentiality clauses and post termination restrictive covenants into your employee’s contract of employment.
Where such clauses are breached our lawyers are on hand to advise you on the most appropriate course of action you can take to remedy the situation; be that an injunction, mediation or legal proceedings and if the matter does proceed to court, the recovery of damages against the offending employees.
We also advise employers who are recruiting a team from a competitor as well as those who are seeking protection and/or damages in the Courts where a team has moved to a competitor.
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Legal 500
FAQs- Restricted Covenants and Team moves
This is a type of clause in a contract which seeks to restrict a party from acting in a certain way. In employment contracts, they are often used to seek to prohibit an employee from doing something after they have left employment, such as soliciting customers and employees or working in a competing business.
The most common types in an employment context are:
- Non-solicitation clauses – seeking to prevent an ex-employee from contacting certain customers and employees
- Non-employment clauses – seeking to prevent an ex-employee from offering employment to certain employees even if they do not solicit the contact initially
- Non-dealing clauses – seeking to prevent an ex-employee from dealing at all with certain customers even if they do not solicit the contact initially
- Non-compete clauses – seeking to restrict an ex-employee from working for a rival
Yes. They must go no further than is necessary to protect the employer’s legitimate business interests but provided they meet the legal tests associated with this they are legally enforceable.
Contact our specialist team at Clarkslegal and we can talk you through your options and help guide you through the process.
They may face legal action from the employer. This could include a claim to recover any loss the employer has suffered as a result of their actions and/or an injunction to prevent the employee from continuing to act in breach.
