Employment Law Blog

An overly broad restrictive covenant will not protect an employer’s interests.  In order to effectively prevent a former employee from stealing customers or utilizing confidential information, it is important that an employer can quickly run to Court and file an application for injunctive relief.  A restrictive covenant that is overly broad or unreasonable will delay any attempts to obtain injunctive relief.  If a restrictive covenant is overly broad, a Court will issue injunctive relief only after arguments about where the new line should be set.  Often this requires disclosure of confidential customer information, along with the negotiation of a confidentiality agreement.  As a result, not only will any Court assistance be delayed, but the former employer will have to disclose even more customer information.  Accordingly, if you are truly interested in protecting your Company’s proprietary information and customer contacts, it is worth the extra time and money to have appropriate and enforceable restrictive covenants drawn up for each employee that could damage the Company if they suddenly left for a competitor.