I have some experience with rich people who think they can just put whatever they want in contracts and then stare at you until you sign it because you are physically dependent on eating food every day.
Turns out they're right, they can put whatever they want in a contract. And again, they are correct that their wage slaves will 99.99% of the time sign whatever paper he pushes in front of them while saying "as a condition of your continued employment, [...]".
But also it turns out that just because you signed something doesn't mean that's it. My friends (all of us young twenty-something software engineers much more familiar with transaction isolation semantics than with contract law) consulted with an attorney.
The TLDR is that:
- nothing in contract law is in perpetuity
- there MUST be consideration for each side (where "consideration" means getting something. something real. like USD. "continued employment" is not consideration.)
- if nothing is perpetual, then how long can it last supposing both sides do get ongoing consideration from it? the answer is, the judge will figure it out.
- and when it comes to employers and employees, the employee had damn well better be getting a good deal out of it, especially if you are trying to prevent the employee (or ex-employee) from working.
A common pattern ended up emerging: our employer would put something perpetual in the contract, and offer no consideration. Our attorney would tell us this isn't even a valid contract and not to worry about it. Employer would offer an employee some nominal amount of USD in severance and put something in perpetuity into the contract. Our attorney tells us the judge would likely use "blue ink rule" to add in "for a period of one year", or, it would be prorated based on the amount of money they were given relative to their former salary.
(I don't work there anymore, naturally).