Restrictive Covenants
As experienced Employment Law solicitors, based in Caernarfon and serving the North Wales area, we can insert post-termination restrictive covenants into your employment contracts which are legally enforceable.
These can help protect your business from senior employees contacting your customers or using your privileged information for the benefit of their new employer at your expense.
Restrictive covenants needed to be drafted very carefully to be effective, if they are not specific enough or attempt to restrict your employees for an unreasonably long periods, they may be deemed void by a court if you try and enforce them.
The contract can also include a gardening leave clause which may be enforceable if an employee tries to leave before the notice period end. So a gardening leave clause of say 3 months’ notice with a restrictive covenant clause preventing the employee from moving to a competitor for 3 months could effectively prevent them from going to that competitor for 6 months.
When an employee departs, they could seek to exploit your commercially sensitive information, contact former clients for business or encourage colleagues to follow them to a new position.
Restrictive covenants can be utilised in employment contracts to attempt to prevent this but for them to be enforceable through the courts they need to be reasonable and carefully drafted.
We can help you draft covenants in this complex area of law to significantly increase the chances of them being effective.
If you have an employee intending to breach the restrictive covenants, we can assist to enforce them.
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What are Restrictive Covenants
When employees leave there is a potential threat of valuable business information being passed to a competitor, or personal trade connections being exploited. This is why a professional restrictive covenant solicitor can keep your business protected.
Valid and enforceable restrictive covenants can be effective in protecting that data but must be very carefully drafted if the courts are to enforce them. Poor attention to detail can make them void. There are various types of restrictive covenant available to an employer, including:
Non-competition – restricting the former employee from working for a competitor, or setting up a competing business.
Non-solicitation – restricting the former employee from approaching clients and prospective clients once they have moved to a new business or set up their own business.
Non-dealing – restricting any contact between the former employee, clients and prospective clients, even if it is not the employee initiating that contact.
Non-poaching – restricts the former employee from approaching their previous colleagues to move to their new employer or their own business.
Garden leave – to be used once an employee has given notice to prevent them from attending the office and can prevent them from working during their notice period.
For more information on restrictive covenants, please contact us using the form below.
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