IBM has sued Dell for hiring an M&A manager who had signed an NCA with IBM.

This non-compete litigation will be instructive to watch:
http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=217700367

I was told by a labor lawyer (one who represents the corporate side, not the labor side) that NCAs are really difficult (almost prohibitively so) to enforce below the exec level, because its difficult to make the case to prevent someone from earning a living (in their field of work in the proximity of their home), and if it went to a jury trail, the former employee would almost certainly win. I wonder if that’s still the case, or if the legal climate is changing?

I suspect that most NCAs also has some “third-party” mediation clause to keep it out of the courts, for that reason. Perhaps editing the clause to allow the case to go to the courts would make signing the NCA a non-issue?

The NCA may be hard to enforce, but you would probably spend about a year’s salary defending yourself against one.

Years ago I got a package to read print out and sign to bring to the final interview — by email — So with the help of a lawyer friend I tweaked the language more suitable for me and printed it out and signed, It was countersigned by the HR jokey without reading, and it resides in the corporate files somewhere. Someday it will give me an opportunity to enforce the terms. Wait till the hornet stings back.

Do we have any examples of middle-level people who have re-negotiated or refused to sign a non-compete? Did any of them get the job?

My experience is that the non-compete wording comes down from the corporate office and you can either refuse it and the job or accept it and the job while hoping it will be un-enforceable.

I have refused to sign a truly shocking and completely un-enforceable non-compete, which lost me the job offer. Note that I first requested the most shocking clause to be removed and was refused. I don’t regret it since the company was obviously run by idiots incapable of writing an enforceable agreement, but I might feel differently in today’s job market.

Does anyone have any examples of a mid-level person who successfully resisted the corporate non-compete in any way? And got the job?

Matt: What that corporate labor lawyer didn’t mention is the “chilling effect” such an NCA can have, and I’ve seen that happen. Sure, you’re likely to win if it demands too much, but what company thinking of hiring you would want the hassle?

At least for smaller companies most don’t have an arbitration provision, and those aren’t worth very much to the individual, they seldom win and for a company thinking of hiring you, that’s just another layer of uncertainty.

Final comment: as I understand it, except in rare circumstances they are unenforceable in California. I and many others think that has more than a little to do with Silicon Valley’s near half-century run as a high tech center.

Eddie,

Your story does not surprise me. It suggests that HR regards NCA’s as just another routine form. I believe NCA’s at most companies are mindless – they’re “copied” by HR from some HR association’s store of boilerplate documents. They don’t like negotiating them because they didn’t write them and don’t understand them, and don’t want to spend legal fees to correct them.

Your solution is a good one. I wonder how many personnel jockeys would just take a signed, revised doc and file it like that? Probably most. Caveat emptor.

G,

I’ve had candidates work with my clients to revise NCA’s. The more quietly you do it, the more likely to get it done. What employers worry about is word getting out that they revised the NCA for one person. That would lead to requests for changes by employees.

I’m an example of someone who refused to sign an NCA while I was an employee of a company. My employer was acquired by a bigger company. HR demanded that all managers sign an NCA. Mind you, these were people who ALREADY were employees. I ignored it each time it arrived in inter-office mail. (E-mail was nascent then.) Finally I started getting calls from HR wanting to know when I was going to sign it. I kept telling them my lawyer was still reviewing it. Would the company’s lawyer have time to discuss it with my lawyer? Now we were talking legal fees for the company. Managers around me told me I’d get fired. They were stunned. I never signed it, no matter how many times HR asked. What were they going to do, fire me? I suppose they could have. A year or so later I quit because the company was so poorly managed.

I have never signed any kind of NCA. I never will. The answer to an NCA is to request that the company sign a severance package that compensates you for lost income due to the restriction the NCA imposes. That’s only fair. I won’t compete with you, but you have to pay me to stay out of your market, okay?

Once I applied for a contract postion as a bottom-of-the-totem-pole software engineer, in which I would be employed by ContractCo and work at GiantCo. I told ContractCo’s recruiter in our first conversation that my long-term goal was to work at GiantCo as a direct employee, and I did not want to sign anything that would restrict my ability to work for GiantCo. He said no problem.

I interviewed with ContractCo and GiantCo and they liked me. Then I got the employment agreement from ContractCo. It had a very strict non-compete clause. For 1 year after my contract ended, I could not work for GiantCo or (get this) any other company at which ContractCo had placed employees. They would not provide me with a list of those companies, but from their web site it seemed that they placed employees at most of the large employers in this area. And this was a 3-month contract.

There was also a No Solicitation clause that, if I read it correctly, forbade me from having any contact with any employee at GiantCo for 1 year after my contract ended.

There was a clause stating that any litigation to enforce the agreement had to take place in ContractCo’s home state.

There was a special provision for those of you who would sign the agreement thinking it is unenforceable. The agreement had a clause stating that you think the agreement is “fair” or somesuch. It would be hard to go to court then and argue that you think the agreement is unfair.

Both the offer letter and the agreement stated that the agreement superseded any previous written or oral agreements. So everything the recruiter told me over the phone was, to put it charitably, insignificant.

I asked that the questionable parts of the agreement be changed to match what the recruiter said in the phone calls. The only thing he would change would be to change the 1-year period to 3 months.

I declined the job offer. The recruiter asked me why. I told him it was because of the agreement.

Glad to see all the dumb employer tricks with NCA’s that fellow readers have posted.

Thus I’m inspired to give a related contract signing story.

My divorce attorney had buried in their representation contract a clause that allowed them to AUTOMATICALLY bill your credit card for outstanding balances.

This would potentially cause issues for many reasons so I simply lined out the offending sentence in that section, returned it to the secretary and kept my mouth shut.

As you would imagine, there was a billing dispute that the attorney refused to be fair about.

So…imagine their surprise when they discovered that any attempts to bully me by unilaterally charging my card would be FRAUD!

So I agree with many comments above. Read the NCA, bring up questions, attempt to negotiate and “walk” if you’re being taken advantage of.

Nick, I once had a situation like that where the company tried to get all the existing employees to sign a new non-compete. One employee refused and was fired. (He should have used your “I’m still consulting my lawyer” line instead of outright refusing.) I noticed the agreement was a Word document to be faxed back so I edited it to say what it should have said and faxed it back. They never noticed, which gave me time to find a new job.

I wonder how it would work, when offered a new job with a non-compete, to offer “I’m still consulting my lawyer” or “Can we schedule a meeting with my lawyer and the company’s lawyer” for a while. How many companies would eventually give up and how many would refuse to hire?

I wish I had this thread about three years ago. I unknowingly signed the company’s NCA without giving it much thought. I received it as an email and it was made clear that signing it was a ‘routine’ requirement of employment.

After leaving the company three years later I was offered a job at a competitor. My former employer sent me a threatening letter, which I took, along with the NCA to a sharp employment lawyer. He advised me to take heed as the arbitration would occur in a small town where the CEO had lived his whole life and was pals with the judge.

End result: the new employer withdrew my job offer, saying he didn’t want to play hardball with the former employer. This was four months ago.

As for me, I’m having a difficult time finding a new job. Being 61 makes it tough. Morale: heed the advice of this thread and be smart.

I am currently being pushed to sign a non-compete from my employer. I was brought on as a new GM, externally, four months ago. The NCA put in front of me lists a 1000 mile radius, and a three year time frame, with no provision to protect me. Thanks for the advice everyone. I’ve spoken to my attorney, and tomorrow I am suggesting SEVERAL changes to the document before I sign anything at all. I’ll post an update as to how it goes….

Jeremy,

Why didn’t they give you the NCA when they hired you? Seems pretty odd to me that just 4 months later they hit you with this.

My advice: Have an attorney review it and advise you. Use that to buy you some time. If they’re gonna spring this so suddenly, they should undestand that you need time to consult a lawyer. If they say “it’s no big deal” then I’d smile and say, “so why are we doing this?”

I am an individual software consultant and I signed a non-competant agreement with a recruting company A. The company A said its going to place me with a client B.
The agreement says I cannot work for client B for 1 yr after completing my employment with the client B. I signed this agreement without any job offer letter from the client B or Company A.

So my question is without any real job offer, is the non compete agreement valid? There is no start date of employment on the agreement. Meanwhile another recruiting company is ready to place me with the client B. Is it legally permissible to join the client B through another recruiting company.

I have never been employed by this company A before and I dont have any job offers from them. But they made me sign the agreement saying its just a usual procedure before submitting me to the client. Also in the agreement whenever it specifies me, it says as a consultant. It doesn’t use the word employee. So am I bound to this agreement as an individual consultant even though I am not an employee of that company.
Thanks in advance.

I began volunteering at a store two days a week and then I began working three days a week with pay. The majority of the time that I spent in the store, I was sorting and pricing items, creating sales, greeting customers and organizing their business so that it would be a better environment for them and their customers. In the last couple of days there was a difference of opinion between the owners and myself and I chose to terminate my employment.

These employers are now requesting that I sign a non-compete document. Is this legal and do I need to sign it? They are choosing to withhold wages that are owed to me if I do not sign the requested document, even though I have terminated employment with them.

Thank you.

@bazza: I’m not a lawyer and this is not legal advice. What you’re experiencing is not uncommon: An employer tries to get an NCA signed when an employee quits. That’s nuts! My advice: Contact your state department of labor and employment. Ask them your question. My guess is that if you do not sign the NCA, your employer would be in violation of state law if it doesn’t pay you wages you have already learned. Don’t be intimidated. I think your employer is trying to intimidate you. Talk to the state – get advice from those who are responsible for regulations. I’d love to know what comes of this. Hope it goes well.