[IxDA Discuss] throwing out some knowledge to the group...

[Nasir Barday]

No-competes are big in the finance industry. Most banks will escort an
employee out of the building as soon as one tells the employer he/she's been
hired by a competitor. The silver lining: a hiring firm will usually build 6
months (or whatever the non-compete "memory flushing" period is) of vacation
into an offer package, preceding the first day of work.

Anyway, that's how at least one industry deals with no-competes in a hungry
market.

- Nasir


On 9/2/07, Chauncey Wilson <chauncey.wilson at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 9/2/07, M S <mark_sloan at hotmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > I don't think anyone should be signing these kind of contracts,
> regardless
> > of whether, like us, your state protects you. Everyone has the right to
> > work
> > and NO COMPANY should have legal means to prevent you from making a
> > living,
> > regardless of if it is a competitor or not. You have certain unalienable
> > rights, and I think this should be considered one of them. It is
> > ridiculous.
> > Anyone have links to examples of this being upheld? The only time I have
> > read about it is when trade secrets are involved.
> >
> > Thoughts?
>
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Here are a few links to cases involving non-competes including an
> interesting cases where a person moved to LA to work with a competitor.
> Many
> cases with senior people do go to court and some are overturned and some
> are
> not. There are now clauses in some of the licenses for software products
> that state that you won't hire people you know from the company.  I know
> if
> one cases where a company wouldn't buy the software until that clause had
> been purged.  There is a legal balance between the right to work for
> PARTICULAR employers and the protection of the company's trade secrets and
> investment in particular people.  Consider if you were a 5 person firm and
> your chief software architect left to work for your most determined
> competitor just as you were about to release the beta of your
> product.  Your
> architect could in most cases work for thousands of other employers, but
> not
> your direct competitor.  One solution (I think that Whitney may have
> mentioned this earlier) is to ask an employer to provide a list of the
> companies they feel are major competitors and have them include that in an
> addendum to the employee agreement.  About 10 years ago, I did just that
> and
> it turned out that there were only two companies on the non-compete.  If
> the
> non-compete is too general, that could be harmful and you should negotiate
> with your employer.
>
> A few links dealing with non-competes (and challenges to them) are listed
> below.  Frankly, employee agreements should be read carefully and if you
> see
> anything odd should be reviewed by someone with contract or legal
> experience.
>
> Chauncey
>
> http://www.memag.com/memag/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=257400
>
> http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/stories/2002/12/30/story3.html
> (interesting case about a non-California company enforcing a non-compete
> with a person who wanted to work for an LA competitor).  It also notes
> that
> CA makes most non-competes illegal in the high-tech area.
>
>
> http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=mn&vol=appunpub%5C0208%5C783&invol=1
>
>
> http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/articlepdf/327.pdf?CFID=32759361&CFTOKEN=19733666&jsessionid=9a3083c134be6469382f
>
> http://www.gdhm.com/the_firm/news/article/?ID=77
>
>
> http://64.233.169.104/search?q=cache:B4mKs2ugu3sJ:www.armstrongteasdale.com/News-Publications/ClientAlerts/NewDevelopmentsInNon-CompeteLaw_April7-04.pdf+noncompete+court+cases&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=10&gl=us&ie=UTF-8
>
>
>
>
>
> >
> > _________________________________________________________________
> > Get a FREE small business Web site and more from Microsoft(r) Office
> Live!
> > http://clk.atdmt.com/MRT/go/aub0930003811mrt/direct/01/
> >
> >
> > ________________________________________________________________
> > Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)!
> > To post to this list ....... discuss at ixda.org
> > List Guidelines ............ http://beta.ixda.org/guidelines
> > List Help .................. http://beta.ixda.org/help
> > Unsubscribe ................ http://beta.ixda.org/unsubscribe
> > Questions .................. list at ixda.org
> > Home ....................... http://beta.ixda.org
> >
> >
> ________________________________________________________________
> Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)!
> To post to this list ....... discuss at ixda.org
> List Guidelines ............ http://beta.ixda.org/guidelines
> List Help .................. http://beta.ixda.org/help
> Unsubscribe ................ http://beta.ixda.org/unsubscribe
> Questions .................. list at ixda.org
> Home ....................... http://beta.ixda.org
>