Creative Industries Level 5:Protecting your business interests

I had found this article on the protection of businesses and why it is so important to protect your own business, particularly in the economy we are currently in and here is the article from the website:

Protecting your business interests

In these days of economic downturn and tough competition it is vital to protect your business interests as best you can.

Unless protection is in place former employees could have a devastating effect on your business. How can you do this? The only enforceable way to protect your business is to incorporate enforceable restrictive covenants into your employee's contracts of employment or (if appropriate) compromise agreement, these are known as Post Termination Restrictive Covenants.

The covenants, if drafted correctly, can be used to prevent former employees from soliciting or dealing with your clients or suppliers, encouraging other key workers to leave and join them or disclosing your trade secrets and competing directly against you.

For any covenant to be enforceable, it must be reasonable, and it must protect a legitimate business interest. For a covenant to be reasonable it must go no further than is necessary to protect the business. If a covenant is viewed as unreasonable then it will be void and unenforceable, therefore great care must be taken at the drafting stage.

You must ensure that the covenant relates only to that type of work carried out by the employee, and you must ensure that it complies with any accepted industry standard. The covenant must be set for a reasonable duration and geographical extent. Generally the covenant may only refer to the area where your company carries on its business. Finally, you must be able to identify an actual or potential harm which would be caused by an employee's breach.

What can you do if the covenant is breached? Provided you can show an actual or prospective harm, then there are various remedies available the most important of which is an injunction. An injunction can be granted at an interim stage to prevent the employee breaching the covenant pending a full trial. This provides the quickest method of protecting your business and in the majority of cases will be sufficient, as a full trial may not take place until the duration of the covenant has expired.

An alternative remedy is damages. If damages are awarded they will be for breach of contract, and therefore seek to put you in the position you would have been had the contract been performed. A third measure of damages is an account of profits, where the profits the employee makes from his breach of covenant must be paid over to the employer. Finally, you could bring a claim against a third party if an employee is threatening to disclose confidential information, or is threatening to take up employment with that third party.

Don't delay check your contracts of employment today and if in doubt seek expert legal advice.

Gillian Markland is head of employment law at Ingrams Solicitors

Link:http://www.yorkpress.co.uk/news/business/columnists/8135286.Protecting_your_business_interests/?ref=rss