A noncompete clauses seem to be consistently attacked in employee-employer. The rule seems to be that a noncomplete clause must be self sustaining in that the noncompete must have its own consideration separate from the rest of the contract.
Ok, lets take a basic emplyment contract. Parties to a contract, Company and Employee, contract so that a company pays Employee $100 per month in consideration for the Employee providing his or her labor efforts to the company in the form of a usual 40hr work week. Now, if the Company wants to throw a noncompete clause in there, the company must provide for separate consideration (it cant be just the salary bc that's the original consideration). Thus, in the majority of examples, a Company would need to incorporate in its noncompete clause that Company provides Employee "confidential information" (such as marketing/client lists, intellectual property info, etc.) in consideration for Employee agreeing to not compete against Company after employment period. Of course, the noncompete clause requires reasonable and legally enforceable terms such as time length and geographic distances. However, I won't touch a discussion involving these terms since this is not a labor law blog.
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Anyone wondering whether a non-compete is valid really needs to have it reviewed by an attorney since its enforceability will depend upon the state where employer resides, the state where employee resides and a whole host of other factors. For more posts on enforceability of non-compete agreements check out our employee rights blog www.takethisjobnshoveitblog.com.
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