Can your previous employer enforce the restrictive covenant in the contract?

Can your previous employer enforce the restrictive covenant in the contract?

The law relating to these restrictive covenants is extremely complex. And there are a number of issues which need to be considered when deciding if you can enforce the covenant. Generally, a restrictive covenant will be enforceable between the original parties as a matter of contract.

Can your previous employer enforce the restrictive covenant in the contract? This is the question I put to expert employment law solicitor Thushara (Tosh) Polpitye.

Transcript

Have you left your job? Are you going to work for a competitor employer? Can your previous employer enforce the restrictive covenant in the contract? Watch this short video an expert solicitor Tosh Polpitye will explain.

So the way to think about it is what is the purpose of the restrictive covenant? It's to protect the legitimate business interest. So if you work for Pepsi and then you go to work for Coca-Cola probably they could stop you, there are trade secrets, there it's things that could legitimately damage one of those companies. If you're going to work for a competitor but you're not doing something that damages that company, I don't know as a silly example, if I went to another law firm worked as a cleaner or something, then obviously it has nothing to do with me being a lawyer in that firm. So as long as you're doing something that doesn't affect the other business, and then listen it's a legitimate reasonable and enforceable restrictive covenant.

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