4 ms·

In france you these need to be pre-approved, you have to have an employment protection plan, and even then the court can overturn all this and make you hire eve

In france you these need to be pre-approved, you have to have an employment protection plan, and even then the court can overturn all this and make you hire everyone back. "Collective redundancies can be void by an administrative court, if the latter recognises shortfalls in the employment protection plan or if an administrative authority did not validate or approve the employment protection plan at all. In case the administrative authority validated or approved the employment protection plan without stating sufficient reasons, its decision might be invalidated by the court." In the UK (which is MUCH more liberal and I wasn't considering the UK part of the EU) there are still plenty of steps. For the UK "Non-compete clauses and restrictive covenants are highly enforceable in the UK in order to protect the business the employee is leaving." https://www.ms-solicitors.co.uk/employee/faqs-employees-guide-to-post-termination-restrictive-covenants/ https://www.ms-solicitors.co.uk/employee/faqs-employees-guid... Redundencies can be overturned if the selection criteria for them is "unfair" or discriminates. "You can select employees based on their length of service (‘last in, first out’) but only if you can justify it. It could be indirect discrimination if it affects one group of people more than another". Because often some type of group is affected more than others if you lay off new hires you get into a quagmire pretty quickly.

C1sc0cat 6y ago
NC and restrictive covenants are not "highly enforceable" in the UK, I do not know where you got that idea from. Limited NC for v senior people for short periods possibly - and by v senior I mean board level.
- peteri 6y ago
  They are relatively enforceable as part of a compromise agreement. However the last one I signed was quite restricted in that it was for 12 months and only listed 4 direct competitors. Normally the companies lawyer tries for more and your lawyer tells them to get real. If you don't sign the agreement I suspect a lot of the time you'll just have to do gardening leave for the rest of your contract. Also don't forget if you were a director you still have a fiducary duty to the company once you've left. What I'm slightly unclear about is how practical this is for sales folks where this is an expectation they will steal prospects or existing clients. I suspect you might only bother with lawyers if it looks like they are poaching from your existing clients. In the UK non-competes in my view for engineering staff are basically unenforcable, IP theft is much more likely to succeed (and I've been involved in a direct copyright theft case). 24/7 IP ownership is enforcable but my experience is that most places don't care if you're not going to be a direct competitor. I always feel it's worth getting that in writing though, my current contract limits this to areas of the companies business. Our corporate lawyer limited this when we had to sign a new contract post a takeover (it was a bit broad and could have covered things like photographs of your kids). Also I have in the past asked if I'm contributing to open source as part of my work as like things to be clear. IP rights is probably the one area I check in a new contract and usually it's fairly easy to get agreement for some minor changes.
  - C1sc0cat 6y ago
    And if those 4 competitors are the industry? and 12 months you where had mate (unless your a C level ) Your right about trade secrets though.

C1sc0cat 6y ago

NC and restrictive covenants are not "highly enforceable" in the UK, I do not know where you got that idea from. Limited NC for v senior people for short periods possibly - and by v senior I mean board level.

peteri 6y ago
They are relatively enforceable as part of a compromise agreement. However the last one I signed was quite restricted in that it was for 12 months and only listed 4 direct competitors. Normally the companies lawyer tries for more and your lawyer tells them to get real. If you don't sign the agreement I suspect a lot of the time you'll just have to do gardening leave for the rest of your contract. Also don't forget if you were a director you still have a fiducary duty to the company once you've left. What I'm slightly unclear about is how practical this is for sales folks where this is an expectation they will steal prospects or existing clients. I suspect you might only bother with lawyers if it looks like they are poaching from your existing clients. In the UK non-competes in my view for engineering staff are basically unenforcable, IP theft is much more likely to succeed (and I've been involved in a direct copyright theft case). 24/7 IP ownership is enforcable but my experience is that most places don't care if you're not going to be a direct competitor. I always feel it's worth getting that in writing though, my current contract limits this to areas of the companies business. Our corporate lawyer limited this when we had to sign a new contract post a takeover (it was a bit broad and could have covered things like photographs of your kids). Also I have in the past asked if I'm contributing to open source as part of my work as like things to be clear. IP rights is probably the one area I check in a new contract and usually it's fairly easy to get agreement for some minor changes.
- C1sc0cat 6y ago
  And if those 4 competitors are the industry? and 12 months you where had mate (unless your a C level ) Your right about trade secrets though.