[HN Gopher] Tell HN: Beware confidentiality agreements that act ...
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Tell HN: Beware confidentiality agreements that act as lifetime non
competes
Just a note of warning from personal experience. Companies don't
really need non-competes anymore. Some companies take an extremely
broad interpretation of IP confidentiality, where they consider
doing any work in the industry during your lifetime an inevitable
confidentiality violation. 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. It doesn't require conscious
violation on your part (they argue). So beware and read your
employment agreement carefully. More here
https://www.promarket.org/2024/02/08/confidentiality-agreeme...
And this is the insane legal doctrine behind this
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inevitable_disclosure
Author : throwarayes
Score : 172 points
Date : 2025-06-21 16:02 UTC (6 hours ago)
| transactional wrote:
| ...but are they enforceable?
| throwarayes wrote:
| So far it seems maybe?, but according to the article some
| courts and agencies are pushing back. Well the FTC was at least
| in 2023.
|
| California bans anything that is effectively a non compete.
| codingdave wrote:
| I didn't see any references in the article you linked to any
| cases where it had been enforced. I see a lot of commentary
| that validates the concern, and a listing of half a dozen
| states where they are being struck down.
|
| So the callout to be wary of them is totally legit... but it
| doesn't look like they are going to be enforceable when such
| things go through the courts.
| throwarayes wrote:
| Yeah the warning is: you may, like me, find a litigious
| paranoid former employer who freaks out at everything :-/
|
| I'd rather not carry the cost of learning it's not
| enforceable.
| epolanski wrote:
| Well since OP's giving that warning he might've been impacted
| and could tell us more.
| ryandrake wrote:
| Technically, maybe, but effectively, nobody is going to be
| able to withstand BigCorp's 100 lawyers whose mission is to
| bury you in legal fees if you push back. By the time that you
| confirm these things are unenforceable, you've spent your
| life savings on $millions in legal fees, and possibly gone
| into crippling debt. In the legal system, might (wealth +
| lawyer quantity) makes right.
| eirikbakke wrote:
| As I recall from John Akula's Corporate Law class, judges
| in the US tend to be sympathetic to the following argument:
|
| "Defendant has never worked in any other industry. He has
| three kids. He's gotta work."
|
| (That's for regular employees--it's a different issue with
| founders who may have significant equity stake and such.)
| cyberax wrote:
| The "bury in litigation" is overstated. Since it's the
| _company_ that is going to sue you, there's a limited
| amount of shenanigans they can do.
|
| The worst is that they can delay the case for years,
| leaving you in a legal limbo. Or go after your employer,
| involving them in the discovery process.
| gopher_space wrote:
| It sounds like moving to California for a year would be way
| cheaper.
| ghaff wrote:
| You'll probably still end up in court even if the
| plaintiff will likely lose. Maybe cheaper, maybe not.
| jauntywundrkind wrote:
| To riff Keynes,
|
| Enforcement can maintain litigation longer than you can
| maintain solvency.
| teeray wrote:
| And that's our judicial system: whoever has more ability to
| sustain prolonged cash flow wins.
| prerok wrote:
| 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).
| ghaff wrote:
| I've actually dealt with this in third-party IP cases I've
| consulted on. _Of course_ a lot of "bench advice" best
| practices (use a debugger as a silly example) shouldn't cause
| a problem--or maybe even some various specific experiences
| about practices that worked. A file dump of corporate
| strategy and business plan presentations or code--even if
| they probably get pretty stale after a few years--probably
| not.
| kirubakaran wrote:
| 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"
| llm_nerd wrote:
| 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.
| haxton wrote:
| California has banned non competes since 1872. You might be
| thinking about non solicits which was 2024 also reaffirming
| the ban on non competes
| loaph wrote:
| It's not a recent thing. Search for 1872 here, https://www.pu
| rduegloballawschool.edu/blog/news/california-n...
|
| Some form of a ban on noncompete enforcement in CA has
| existed since then.
|
| It has long been codified in CA business code 16600, https://
| leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySectio...
| karthikb wrote:
| The Traitorous Eight would only have been possible in
| California, not Washington, because of the position on
| noncompetes.
| ghaff wrote:
| On the other hand, moving between (and founding)
| minicomputer companies was a thing for a long time in spite
| of Massachusetts being fairly non-compete clause friendly
| until very recently. And arguably, current laws enacted
| against some fairly strenuous tech company opposition force
| companies to put some skin in the game but are still a
| pretty raw deal for employees who can't afford to sit on
| the bench for 50% of their former base. (Which is what I
| think relatively recent legislation calls for.)
|
| I'm against non-competes except in narrow cases. But a lot
| of people probably give the general inability to enforce
| non-competes in California too much credit for CA tech
| success in spite of one story in particular.
| thedufer wrote:
| 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.
| kirubakaran wrote:
| 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)
| coderatlarge wrote:
| WA is busy losing its way on taxation vs value provided for
| taxes paid and reporting burden. so imo these IP issues are
| almost second order effects at this point. i personally expect
| a continued exodus over some of the latest tax hikes for
| example taxing cap gains beyond a certain amount at an
| additional 7%. as if niit was not bad enough. if residents
| could at least see some value from these added taxes maybe it
| could be something. also the estste tax there kicks in quickly
| and has hidden gotchas even for people who no longer live
| there.
| treve wrote:
| One is friendly to existing wealth and the other to innovation
| and disruption I suppose.
| OutOfHere wrote:
| What exactly should one be on the lookout for? Practically every
| company has an IP confidentiality agreement.
| Traubenfuchs wrote:
| Yeah, good luck being the odd one out who wants special
| individualized contract. This might work for unicorn value
| level employees that are poached from one FANG to another but
| not for the average Joe.
| OutOfHere wrote:
| I never said I want an individualized contract, but I reserve
| the right to reject the offer, and I have, when the contract
| is unreasonable. What I want to know is when exactly to
| reject it wrt the confidentiality agreement.
| mapmap wrote:
| In my experience, as a normal non-unicorn employee at a large
| corp, I was able to have my contract modified. It required
| advice from an employment law lawyer that cost a few hundred
| dollars and a couple emails with the company's general
| counsel.
|
| You can change these contracts. Hiring people is difficult
| and once the company has made that decision they don't want
| to lose you over a contract clause.
| OtomotO wrote:
| I had every single one of all my contracts (as employee and
| one-nerd-business) adapted in minor or major ways.
|
| I am good at what I do, but no unicorn and not FANG "level".
|
| But then again, I don't live in the US
| kragen wrote:
| As an average Joe, I was able to negotiate employment
| contract changes every place I worked in the tech industry in
| California in the early 02000s. I don't remember having been
| faced with contract clauses that I felt needed alteration as
| an entry-level tech employee in the 01990s.
| lovich wrote:
| If you are negotiating terms you are not an average Joe.
| Average Joe's don't even interact with people capable of
| requesting someone higher up to approve the change. Average
| Joe's get given a take it or leave it deal
| kragen wrote:
| You evidently have no idea what you're talking about.
| dboreham wrote:
| ianal but: don't perform personal work while you are employed
| by an employer in the same industry. Or at least make it like
| you didn't do that to any observer.
| kragen wrote:
| You may have misunderstood the topic, which, I'll remind you,
| is confidentiality agreements that act as lifetime non-
| competes, which means _for the rest of your life after_ you
| are employed by an employer in the same industry, not _while_
| you are employed by an employer in the same industry.
| btilly wrote:
| This is a state level thing. As is whether IP produced outside of
| your job, on your own equipment, is yours.
|
| I moved from New York to California a bit over 20 years ago in
| large part because I personally encountered this (the IP
| ownership bit), and preferred to live under California's rules.
|
| It is worthwhile to read https://www.paulgraham.com/america.html.
| Point 7 talks about how easy it is for regulations to
| accidentally squash startups. I believe that the fact that
| California makes neither mistake causes us squash fewer startups.
| It is not sufficient to have made Silicon Valley a startup hub,
| but it was likely necessary.
| throwarayes wrote:
| It also depends on the laws governing your contract, not just
| where you live.
| xhrpost wrote:
| Just looking this up but appears NY finally caught up here in
| 2023
| https://newyork.public.law/laws/n.y._labor_law_section_203-f
| btilly wrote:
| Thanks for the correction.
|
| It was only 20 years too late to help me.
| Esophagus4 wrote:
| I would love to hear whatever you're comfortable sharing of
| your (anonymized) story, if you're up for it!
| arnonejoe wrote:
| I usually add this at the end of the agreement and if they wont
| go for it, I move on:
|
| This agreement shall not apply to any inventions, conceptions,
| discoveries, improvements, and original works of authorship
| that [my name] developed entirely on their own time without
| using [the employer](s) equipment, supplies, facilities, trade
| secret information, or anything not based on or received from
| [the employer].
| matsemann wrote:
| 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.
| stego-tech wrote:
| Have an employment attorney always look over said agreements
| before signing. A local acquaintance who did work for an MSP had
| said MSP try such a ploy, only for the employment attorney to sue
| and get it thrown out as unreasonable and unenforceable.
|
| Never, EVER sign a contract without reading it first, and having
| your lawyer review it.
| iLoveOncall wrote:
| > your lawyer
|
| That presupposes that people have a lawyer, and one specialized
| in employment law at that, which is highly unlikely to be the
| case for 99% of the population.
| throwaway173738 wrote:
| Sometimes general employment law is not enough and you need
| someone who specializes in executive contracts for upper
| management.
| stego-tech wrote:
| A good employment law lawyer is A) not at all hard to find in
| major metros, B) charges reasonable rates for quick
| turnaround times, and C) is something more people need to
| have on their side in general, rather than elevating them as
| some snooty thing only the elite have.
|
| This whole "bUt WhO hAs A lAwYeR" nonsense I'm being blasted
| with in my comments is exactly why these sorts of contracts,
| grifts, and scams are allowed to exist and succeed.
|
| Know your rights, get a lawyer, and then share that knowledge
| with others. It's Organizing 101 stuff.
| ghaff wrote:
| Yeah, as far as I know, I've never needed one (aside from
| very routine real estate) but I've had to get a couple
| lawyers recently for different purposes--through my
| neighbor. I know lawyers but not in the field I need. Sort
| of a PITA but just something you need to do sometimes.
| kragen wrote:
| We're talking about negotiating a contract with a value on
| the order of a million dollars (say, US$200k total
| compensation per year for five years). Even if you don't have
| a lawyer normally, it may be worth the few hundred dollars it
| costs to hire one for this purpose, unless you have no
| savings.
|
| I never did, though. I just crossed out the clauses I didn't
| want to accept and initialed them.
| wat10000 wrote:
| Money can be exchanged for goods and services.
| TrackerFF wrote:
| I understand that your advice is in good faith - but if we
| touch grass for a second, only the tiniest fraction of even
| professional workers have a lawyer at hand. And one that
| specializes in contract law? Even less.
| mapmap wrote:
| It's not that difficult to have legal help with your
| contract. Call your local bar association and ask for an
| employment law specialist. It will likely cost a couple
| hundred for them to review your contract.
| stego-tech wrote:
| I understand that your advice is in good faith - but if we
| touch grass for a second, we can easily find recommendations
| for employment law attorneys who work at very reasonable
| rates with fast (sub-1wk) turnaround times.
|
| Because that's how I found mine. $200 later, and I had total
| confidence in what I was signing and a lawyer on my side if
| things went pear-shaped in the future.
| exe34 wrote:
| > 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'd never be able to work in your
| field that you spent years/decades training for.
| lazide wrote:
| 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.
| duskwuff wrote:
| Precisely. And, at least in the US, any contract which makes
| it impossible for a worker to take a new job in their field
| is extremely likely to be found unconscionable. It doesn't
| matter whether the contract is cast as a non-compete or as a
| NDA; if its effect is to say "you must work for us, or not at
| all", it's unlikely to hold up.
| ghaff wrote:
| Maybe. I've known companies in the IT industry that took a
| very hard line on non-competes. Whether they won in court,
| I don't know. But I've know people who took a year off
| rather than involving the lawyers. Small pretty well-
| defined segment of the industry and a couple of the big
| players apparently did take it seriously. (Never worked for
| either.)
| lazide wrote:
| Just because the employer 'takes it seriously' doesn't
| mean the court won't laugh at them.
|
| In my experience, the more the employer puts up a show,
| the more unenforceable it is.
| ghaff wrote:
| As I say, no personal experience. But people I know took
| fairly serious actions because of the threat.
| ivan_gammel wrote:
| If I understand it right, those NDAs work as non-competes if
| "confidential" is defined as restricted just on the basis of some
| relationship to the business, which is pretty weird attack of
| legalese on common sense. Let's say I used some relatively simple
| chain of thought to derive X about my job at Z. The fact that Z
| uses or does X is probably confidential, and that's ok. This
| would be how I understood a broad definition. But what kind of
| reasoning would conclude that X is confidential per se,
| preventing me to use or do X elsewhere, effectively making doing
| my job impossible? It just doesn't make sense.
| gwbas1c wrote:
| 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.
| senkora wrote:
| In finance, it is common to be paid your base wage during your
| non-compete. Or at least that is how mine worked.
| paxys wrote:
| Yup, garden leave.
| dylan604 wrote:
| That seems like something ripe for being gamed. How do they
| protect from someone just quitting and continuing to get
| paid?
| thw09j9m wrote:
| They're not obligated to enforce the non-compete. If you
| don't have any sensitive information to take to a
| competitor, they might not give you any garden leave.
|
| OTOH, I've seen non-competes as long as 2.5 years from
| places like Citadel.
| yborg wrote:
| Since a huge chunk of comp in finance is bonus, especially if
| you're a rainmaker, I don't see how this is a win.
| secondcoming wrote:
| A few years ago an American company that approached me (UK based)
| about a job opportunity insisted I sign an NDA before I could
| interview with them. I refused and they couldn't understand why
| so they even put me in contact with one of their lawyers. I still
| refused, and they eventually relented, but I could never
| understand why I'd need to sign an NDA to attend a job interview.
| There's literally no benefit to me in doing so.
|
| At the time I was working for a competitor and I figured they
| could use the fact that I interviewed with them to argue that I -
| either intentionally or unintentionally - gained proprietary
| knowledge of their product and my current employer gained from
| it.
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| 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".
| voidfunc wrote:
| This is pretty much the advice every lawyer has given me in the
| past. The likelihood of it coming up is very low. Sometimes
| it's good to not be special.
| ghaff wrote:
| The one time I had to sign a non-compete--because my company
| was acquired--I just signed it because it was quite specific
| and I wasn't going to be an exec of a storage company anytime
| soon. Probably didn't matter much because I left a few months
| later anyway.
| BobbyTables2 wrote:
| I suspect our primary school upbringing of "follow the rules"
| holds a lot of people back.
|
| Seems like a lot of successful people in business know exactly
| how far they can step over the line without suffering serious
| consequences.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| I had a non-compete cause in a contract, I wound up in a
| dispute over unemployment insurance and the contract came up,
| the judge told me that the non-complete cause didn't make any
| sense at all but that's because it was poorly written.
| dimitry12 wrote:
| What are the keywords for finding a lawyer who can advise on
| non-competes?
|
| Asking because it turned out nearly impossible to find a local
| lawyer to advise on a dispute couple months ago - with 9 out of
| 10 telling me they only do divorces or real estate or
| immigration. I was literally calling one by one from a list
| based on what I believe were relevant search criteria on State
| Bar website.
| RhysU wrote:
| https://g-s-law.com/flat-fee-employment-agreement-review/
|
| I had them recommended to me. I have used them and was
| pleased.
| dakiol wrote:
| 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.
| coderatlarge wrote:
| i personally consider bad legal clauses in employment contracts
| a seriously negative sign about the employer. if they're trying
| to pull that sort of thing at hiring, what are they going to
| try to do later when you're fully committed?? is executive
| leadership simply unaware or do they condone that sort of
| thing??
| mystified5016 wrote:
| Well, yes. That's how we do business in the USA. It's
| literally unavoidable unless you can afford to spend a year
| or three declining offers until you find a unicorn with a
| sane contract.
|
| Approximately _all_ businesses explictly try to exploit
| workers to the full extent of the law. That 's what
| capitalism is and it's how we've structured our society.
| coderatlarge wrote:
| social media shaming has worked in a few high profile
| companies like openai recently. especially when founders
| are still around and feel some personal culpability when
| their company's values are on display.
|
| but i think your broader societal point stands though.
| especially with horrible language in vendor contracts that
| people click through because who has time for that garbage.
| i hope llms will help people push back in somewhat more
| concerted and systematic fashion.
| epolanski wrote:
| The fact that something isn't enforceable does not mean it
| won't be a giant headache to prove it in a court in a foreign
| country.
| luke5441 wrote:
| Having probably signed such a contract, how do I find out if it
| is enforcable? Probably talk to a lawyer, but how do you find
| one that gives you a straight, but correct, answer to such a
| complex topic. For me it is even more complex since I'm a fake
| employee (contractor) in another country working for a US
| company.
|
| The answer to those questions might be really unsatisfying in
| practice, since it breaks down to a cost calculation by the
| sueing company (if the company leadership is rational). So in
| case you get sued you have to fight defensively and bleed them
| enough so they give up or something.
| Esophagus4 wrote:
| [not legal advice]
|
| Having talked to lawyers about this sort of case, be prepared
| to speak to several to find a match, or read between the
| lines - when you ask questions like, "If I break this clause,
| what sorts of liabilities am I exposing myself to, and how
| often in your experience does that happen?" Be prepared for,
| "as my client, I don't advise you to do that." Not super
| helpful in my case, as I was trying to understand the
| possible outcomes and likelihoods.
|
| The best advice I got was from a business mentor which was,
| "if you don't rub it in their face, they probably won't
| notice, and probably won't care."
|
| Which is, as you mentioned, a probability calculation.
|
| What I would personally guess [not legal advice] is that you
| rate the likelihood of your employer suing higher than they
| do (absent anything egregious).
| sim7c00 wrote:
| 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
| anilakar wrote:
| > 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.
| tianqi wrote:
| I think the Chinese law is effective in this regard: in order to
| maintain any non-competition agreement, the company must continue
| to pay you a monthly compensation amount equal to 30% of your
| total monthly income when you were at the company. Whenever the
| payment stops, the non-competition agreement is automatically
| void.
| coderatlarge wrote:
| can you choose to refuse these payments to avoid the
| responsibility?
| whiplash451 wrote:
| I've seen this is France and UK but it lasts only a few
| months and no you can't refuse the payment - but the company
| can refuse to pay and set you free.
| v5v3 wrote:
| In UK it's called gardening leave. A period when you are
| still employed but not at work and can't join another
| company without agreement.
|
| Uk law generally is that non compete clause is ok, if the
| length of time is reasonable. But you can't stop a person
| with a trade from applying that trade unreasonably.
|
| Most tend to be 3-6 months.
|
| Normally it's to stop a person leaving from stealing
| clients.
| hmottestad wrote:
| Would be very interested to read more about that. Do you have a
| link?
| marcosdumay wrote:
| Or the Brazilian law, that requires 100% compensation, and puts
| the onus on the company to prove that the non-compete is
| necessary before it can be enforced.
|
| If you ever see one of those contracts here, it's usually
| usually for a very reasonable situation and a well paid
| position.
| onion2k wrote:
| Imagine if Tesla had been able to stop Andrej Karpathy working
| at Open AI just by spending 1/3 of what his salary was when he
| was on Autopilot. That sounds like a terrible idea.
| v5v3 wrote:
| That's a terrible law.
|
| 30% of your total monthly income as it was, when you are likely
| leaving for more money at a competitor or to start your own
| company...
| taneq wrote:
| So do it four times and retire.
|
| Hmm... in four different industries, though... Yeah okay
| there might be some issues.
| aforwardslash wrote:
| In Portugal is generically the same - non-compete clauses
| require the payment of a monthly compensation for the duration
| of the non-compete clause; If non-compete clause exists, but no
| specific compensation is specified in the contract, the
| employee may demand the full salary during the specified period
| (I know at least one case).
| schmichael wrote:
| Oregon at least makes it 50% IIRC. Anything less than 100%
| seems useless though. Usually when taking a new job in the same
| industry you expect a pay bump, so even a 100% rate is likely
| leaving money on the table.
| almosthere wrote:
| New definition for the word Irony:
|
| AI companies protecting their IP.
| sgt101 wrote:
| Has anyone been caught by this? As in sued or prevented from
| working?
| viapivov wrote:
| Like.. has anyone been sued for the violation of the non compete?
| timoth3y wrote:
| Non-competes (including stealth non-competes like the OP
| mentioned) are being abused by US employers seeking leverage over
| their employees.
|
| In fact, 12% of hourly workers earning $20 or less had to sign
| non-competes. These workers do not have access to corporate
| secrets. It simply reduces their power to negotiate with their
| employer.
|
| https://www.minneapolisfed.org/article/2021/non-compete-cont...
| aforwardslash wrote:
| Not only in the US; without going into too much detail, many
| countries in south America and Africa have strong business
| connections with the US, and it is quite common to see the
| ever-abusive dumb dumb US contract templates being used in
| those countries, even when local law differs significantly.
| Usually, the posture is "we can do whatever you want and you
| keep your mouth shut, or else we'll sue you for everything". I
| loathe organizations with these kind of contracts.
| aforwardslash wrote:
| On a personal note, I once was presented with such a (US)
| contract that also required me to list every NDA I had signed
| to date; Since then, I always assume most US lawyers are
| beyond incompetent.
| bobbruno wrote:
| If the law has specific clauses about this that the contract
| disrespects, these conditions are not worth the paper they
| are written on.
|
| At least in Brazil you can't enforce something the law
| doesn't allow in a contract - that clause would be considered
| void without nullifying the contract. And Labour law in
| Brazil leans (or used to lean) more in favor of the
| employee,so yes, the law would win. Another aspect there is
| that unions are more common than in the US, and they will
| help in such cases.
| josephcsible wrote:
| I wish "inevitable disclosure" were totally turned on its head.
| If I were in charge, proving inevitable disclosure would happen
| would result in nullifying the NDA instead.
| neuroelectron wrote:
| Too bad. I routinely reapply the exact same business logic across
| competitors. I even have proprietary source code collections I
| use for reference. If you don't like it, write your own software.
| Business methods are literally unpatentable.
|
| If you're not copying internal wikis, and poaching customers what
| are you even doing?
| v5v3 wrote:
| What happend to you?
| tptacek wrote:
| For what it's worth, a noncompete that makes it effectively
| impossible for you to apply your profession anywhere for your
| entire career is unlikely to be enforceable in any state in the
| country.
|
| Companies that are serious about noncompetes for professionals
| (rather than hourly shift workers) generally do garden leave. I'd
| take a noncompete for a garden leave company seriously, and would
| maybe roll my eyes at a broad noncompete from a random tech firm.
|
| (Don't sign anything you're not comfortable with.)
| ww520 wrote:
| Not just employment contracts, some companies require NDA just
| for interviews.
| awaymazdacx5 wrote:
| once you're - in you're in. we found we were bound like rats.
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