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Tell HN: Beware confidentiality agreements that act as lifetime non competes

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Re: Tell HN: Beware confidentiality agreements that act as lifetime non competes

#31

Post by lazide »

exe34 wrote: post #22

> They argue it would be impossible for you to work elsewhere in this industry during your entire career without violating confidentiality with the technical and business instincts you bring to that domain In that case you need to ask for a lifetime worth of salary, including growth from being in position to be put in escrow before you sign the dotted line. Otherwise they can hire you and fire you immediately and you…

Realistically, most places ban ‘unconscionable’ contract clauses, either explicitly or by making them unenforceable.

At least in theory, any judge that saw clauses like that should throw it out for that reason alone in those jurisdictions.

Re: Tell HN: Beware confidentiality agreements that act as lifetime non competes

#32

Post by prerok »

transactional wrote: post #2

...but are they enforceable?

IANAL and I don't know about other countries, but in EU (definitely the country I live in and am pretty sure it goes for the rest as well) any non-compete agreement after two years is void by law.

You are required to hold confidential stuff for life, like business contracts, but you can use your know-how, if it does not violate any patents, in a competing company as you see fit. This knowledge is a part of you and cannot hold you against employment. Even if you do decide within those two years to employ yourself in competing company, this can be held back by your original company only if they give you X% of your pay at them (X can be 80, or as low as 50, as my friends inform me).

Re: Tell HN: Beware confidentiality agreements that act as lifetime non competes

#33

Post by tgsovlerkhgsel »

OTOH, beware letting yourself be intimidated by scary looking but unenforcable clauses that are all over contracts. In doubt, spend a bit of money on a lawyer to figure out what your real situation is.

I know of several cases where lawyers said "don't bother arguing with them about clause X, just sign it and ignore it".

Re: Tell HN: Beware confidentiality agreements that act as lifetime non competes

#34

Post by dakiol »

In some countries that's illegal. So when presented with a contract that contains such claims, I have 2 options:

1) ask them to remove it... and so I risk not getting the job

2) don't say anything, and sign it

If I'm really interested in the job, I'll go for option 2 because I know they cannot enforce such claims, so I'll be fine.

Re: Tell HN: Beware confidentiality agreements that act as lifetime non competes

#35

Post by autobodie »

matsemann wrote: post #19

So happy my union managed to ban broad non-competes in my country ~8 years ago. Now it needs to be very specific if they want to enforce it (not just "development work in the same industry" which most contracts had back when I graduated), only applicable for maximum a year, and they have to pay your salary for the time they stop you working somewhere else.

[flagged]

Re: Tell HN: Beware confidentiality agreements that act as lifetime non competes

#36

Post by karthikb »

llm_nerd wrote: post #11
kirubakaran wrote: post #7

It's funny how states like Washington are notorious for enforceable non-competes, to be "business friendly". Meanwhile California bans non-competes, and its GDP is 4th largest in the world if it were a country! "incumbent friendly" vs "startup friendly"

I'm pro-California and anti-noncompetes, but I'm not sure if this evidence demonstrates much. The banning of non-competes in California is a very recent thing, and if we're doing a correlation thing, California saw the vast bulk of its growth when non-competes were in effect.

The Traitorous Eight would only have been possible in California, not Washington, because of the position on noncompetes.

Re: Tell HN: Beware confidentiality agreements that act as lifetime non competes

#37

Post by sim7c00 »

sounds crazy. in my country, adding anything that prevents you from finding work in the future to a contract is kind of invalid.

you do get non competes etc., but it never holds up in court as you can easily prove it prevents you from finding jobs.

i wish for you in your legislation there might be a similar law, otherwise these things are really evil. i mean, its like prison in some fields niche enough, and those are exactly the fields prone to such overly protective clauses

Re: Tell HN: Beware confidentiality agreements that act as lifetime non competes

#38

Post by anilakar »

sim7c00 wrote: post #37

sounds crazy. in my country, adding anything that prevents you from finding work in the future to a contract is kind of invalid. you do get non competes etc., but it never holds up in court as you can easily prove it prevents you from finding jobs. i wish for you in your legislation there might be a similar law, otherwise these things are really evil. i mean, its like prison in some fields niche enough, and those are…

> adding anything that prevents you from finding work in the future to a contract is kind of invalid.

Here it's six months top, and it only applies to management and specialists with critical domain knowledge - and this also has to be reflected in their wage.

Re: Tell HN: Beware confidentiality agreements that act as lifetime non competes

#39

Post by senkora »

gwbas1c wrote: post #28

I once declined a job offer because the non-compete made no sense. (It was many pages, claimed that I would be paid during the non-compete period, and impossible to read.) I basically concluded that they (the company) had a lawyer that was basically wanking off.

In finance, it is common to be paid your base wage during your non-compete. Or at least that is how mine worked.

Re: Tell HN: Beware confidentiality agreements that act as lifetime non competes

#40

Post by kirubakaran »

thedufer wrote: post #25
kirubakaran wrote: post #7

It's funny how states like Washington are notorious for enforceable non-competes, to be "business friendly". Meanwhile California bans non-competes, and its GDP is 4th largest in the world if it were a country! "incumbent friendly" vs "startup friendly"

I'm not sure what conclusions you think we should draw from that. California's advantage over Washington is primarily one of size - Washington's GDP per capita is actually about 3% higher than California's. The most generous interpretation I can think of is that you're crediting the non-compete difference for California's far larger population, which is tenuous at best.

Shockley -> Fairchild -> Intel, AMD couldn't have happened with non-compete. So Silicon Valley couldn't have happened in Washington.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traitorous_eight

Per capita isn't a good measure here, as Washington's weather helps lower the denominator (I say this as a former Seattle resident)

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