Scott - You need to be explicit inthe contracts... IE in realestate it tends to be you will not opperate as an agent within these suburbs for this period.
On the otherhand you an't tell a carpenter that he can't work with wood for x months In IT it tends to typically be along the lines of 'You will not start a technical support service in direct competition with the technical support service you work for' or 'you will not start an ISP after quitting an ISP' Typically as a Coder? It won't have a great deal of bearing on you. You might find issues with an appropriately worded contract if you went to work for tourism victoria. But its normally only cases of senior roles with direct competition being applicable. General purpose tech monkeys can skip around without serious issues, and generic contracts tend to be too broad to be enforceable. I don't actually know anybody thats had an issue with it in general. I know of one guy who left the company I work for, lifted our business model in entirety, and setup across the road (Well around the corner) undercutting our prices slightly. While I've never tried to dispute it, my legal advice in the apst has been that it is possible, but only with senior roles and in limited conditions. "Scott Barnes" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message news:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > > Can you lock someone into a contract stating they cannot work for a > competitor for X months? I thought you can't do this. I had a situation with > a company i worked for, who basically put in the contract the very same > thing you described "Cannot divulge company secrets, cannot work for my > competitor etc" > > Took it to my lawyer, and he basically laughed and stated its Restraint of > your trade, and they can't restrict or dictate as to who you work for after > leaving a position. You quit/fired from a position, its basically go out and > start again scenario and no one can dictate as what rules / conditions. > > If thats the case, then we better have a backup trade for X months, while we > wait for the timeout as we can't do any web development as that would be in > direct competition to your employer? > > In this case, frankly the problem lied with someone knowing way to much > information about a companies infrastructure. I've heard stories of where in > a "professional" environment, the IT guys knew a person was fired before > they did, in that they'd come in that morning to find that they can't login > and with a yellow post-it note saying "See HR".. > > Walk in, and its bam, right between the eyes. They do this for this very > reason in that, it doesn't give a person enough time / control to damage > company assets / information. Same goes with IT people, most companies will > escort you from the building within 20mins of being "fired" or after you > resign. > > You need to have a monitoring situation on your sysadmins and have someone > check their work etc, play big brother if you have such sensitive > information. Also backups anyone? > > > > --- You are currently subscribed to cfaussie as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] MX Downunder AsiaPac DevCon - http://mxdu.com/
