₦airaland Forum

(Five Minutes Read)


Lot of effort is put into gaining employment, but an equivalent effort should be put into understanding your Contract Of Employment before signing it.

The best way to solve a problem is to solve them before they become a problem. Post employment restrictive covenants, help you to do just this. Once drafted, they define what the employee may do and not do after he leaves your employment. Including these post employment restrictive covenants in your employment contract may save you a lot of headaches in the near future
If you are drafting such restrictive covenant, you may want to include

non-compete agreements: restricting former employees from seeking employment in the same role or trade;

non-solicitation agreements: This restricts former employees from attempting to take any of your company’s clients to a new company.

]no-hire agreements: Restricting former employees from offering employment in another venture to any of the company’s current employees.

It must be noted, that there are certain restrictions to this restrictive covenants (Lol!). However, restrictive covenants must also be limited and cannot be unnecessarily broad in scope and application, in order to be enforceable.
To start with , the extent of a post-employment restrictive covenants must be reasonable and necessary. It must be shown to protect a legitimate business interests of the employer.
Factors considered by courts in determining whether covenants actually serve to protect solely the business interests of the employer include:
(1) Geographic scope of application: A restrictive covenant must be limited in geographical scope; it geographical cache must not be unnecessarily wide.
Scenerio.
Mr A employees Mr. B. The employer includes it in a restrictive covenant signed by Mr. B, that Mr. B must not take up any employment or start any business in this particular industry or niche in the whole of Nigeria. Meanwhile, Mr. A only has 3 branches, all located in Lagos. This may be held to be to...

Read the rest: Visit www.legalify.ng/blog


Note:
Restrictive Covenants are sometimes tricky and might need to be analysed to understand your liabilities. At Legalify, we analyse your contracts, explaining it in simple English; your rights, obligations and liabilities contained in the contract. Visit www.legalify.ng


Read More: www.legalify.ng/blog

Feel free to drop feedbacks and comments, or contact me with suggestions for topics you’d like to see written about — using our handles.

Twitter: @legalifyNg
Facebook : LegalifyNg

legalifyNg:
(Five Minutes Read)


Lot of effort is put into gaining employment, but an equivalent effort should be put into understanding your Contract Of Employment before signing it.

The best way to solve a problem is to solve them before they become a problem. Post employment restrictive covenants, help you to do just this. Once drafted, they define what the employee may do and not do after he leaves your employment. Including these post employment restrictive covenants in your employment contract may save you a lot of headaches in the near future
If you are drafting such restrictive covenant, you may want to include

non-compete agreements: restricting former employees from seeking employment in the same role or trade;

non-solicitation agreements: This restricts former employees from attempting to take any of your company’s clients to a new company.

]no-hire agreements: Restricting former employees from offering employment in another venture to any of the company’s current employees.

It must be noted, that there are certain restrictions to this restrictive covenants (Lol!). However, restrictive covenants must also be limited and cannot be unnecessarily broad in scope and application, in order to be enforceable.
To start with , the extent of a post-employment restrictive covenants must be reasonable and necessary. It must be shown to protect a legitimate business interests of the employer.
Factors considered by courts in determining whether covenants actually serve to protect solely the business interests of the employer include:
(1) Geographic scope of application: A restrictive covenant must be limited in geographical scope; it geographical cache must not be unnecessarily wide.
Scenerio.
Mr A employees Mr. B. The employer includes it in a restrictive covenant signed by Mr. B, that Mr. B must not take up any employment or start any business in this particular industry or niche in the whole of Nigeria. Meanwhile, Mr. A only has 3 branches, all located in Lagos. This may be held to be too broad in application, a restrictive covenant restricting him to Lagos state or Western part of Nigeria may have been more reasonable if the industry or niche of the employer is that important or new.
(2) Restricted Activity: The particular activities restricted must be express and should not be vague or generally all encompassing.
(3)Public Policy: This, public policy effect, makes every restrictive covenant malleable to the courts interpretation of what is public policy. It is believed that the public should be able to enjoy the fruit of labour of a person and should not be unnecessarily restricted.

Therefore, the important thing to lookout for when drafting a restrictive covenant is that what activities would actually threaten the interests of the employer.
For Instance, while it would be safe to restrict an employee on a regional or national scale on the hope and believe that your company will later expand, but, in reality and currently, your company is only operating in a remote village in Anambra, then only a restriction on Anambra(or even only a part of Anambra) would serve to protect the legitimate business interests of the company.

With non-compete agreements in particular, the court considers the employee more, before the employer. If a non-compete would, unnecessarily and generally, serve to restrict a person from gainful employment in their chosen trade or career, courts will be highly reluctant to enforce such an agreement. Restriction will have to be more narrowly tailored, so, where it is unnecessarily vague and wide in scope the court might not enforce it.

Furthermore, the burden of proof (on a scale of probability) rests on the employer to show the reasonability and necessity of the covenant.
The courts, in order to be justiciable may adopt the “blue pencil” rule on that part of the restrictive covenant that is unsavoury, so as to enforce it.

Note:
Restrictive Covenants are sometimes tricky and might need to be analysed to understand your liabilities. At Legalify, we analyse your contracts, explaining it in simple English; your rights, obligations and liabilities contained in the contract. Visit www.legalify.ng


Read More: www.legalify.ng/blog

Feel free to drop feedbacks and comments, or contact me with suggestions for topics you’d like to see written about — using our handles.

Twitter: @legalifyNg
Facebook : LegalifyNg

davide470 pls move this to job section!

Thanks a lot. This is very informative.

We would love you to also treat topics related to intellectual property like software programs etc as this forum will benefit from such too.

Thanks once again

LordZOUGA, kindly move

marvelling:
davide.470 pls move this to job section!

Bros1:
Thanks a lot. This is very informative.

We would love you to also treat topics related to intellectual property like software programs etc as this forum will benefit from such too.

Thanks once again

@Bros1. Thank you for reading through the post. In regards to topics related to Intellectual Property, it's duly noted.

Please, check www.legalify.ng/blog for other posts related to trade secrets.