In short, the Applicability of Competition Bans Act is evolving in Kentucky. If your company has not audited its non-compete agreements with legal advisors or if you are concerned about the applicability of your company`s competition bans, Commonwealth Counsel Group lawyers will be happy to speak to you. Non-competition agreements must be reasonable. They cannot last too long, cover too much geographic area or prohibit former employees from operating too many types of businesses. The length and flexibility in applying a non-competition agreement depends to a large extent on the nature of the undertaking seeking judicial protection. For a non-competition agreement to be applicable, it must be appropriate. The adequacy of non-competition agreements is defined by Kentucky Courts in three different ways: duration, geographic coverage and purpose. The courts have held that non-competition prohibitions can only extend a restriction sufficiently to protect the interests of the employer, not to the point of imposing „unreasonable difficulties on the party.“ In The Creech case, a company that supplied horse farms in Kentucky Mithebe and Stroh asked a longtime employee to sign a „conflict of interest“ document that was not part of his employment contract. When the worker left work to work for another company in a similar company, his former employer claimed that he had violated an agreement not to work for a competitor within three years of the termination of his employment. Non-competition prohibitions do not apply in California, where a law prohibits them, except in very limited, rare cases, where, in the absence of judges, they will not argue against former employees. However, California employers can use non-acquisition and confidentiality agreements to protect their trade secrets, customer lists and confidential data from disclosure when employees who access them leave.

First, an employer needs a good business reason to ask workers to sign non-compete agreements, which should not penalize workers for simply moving. As a general rule, the right business reason will be to protect the employer`s trade secrets or customers, which have been developed by hard work for many years. The selectivity of staff who are required to sign a non-compete clause improves the chances of success in court, as judges are most likely to apply them to employees who have access to the most sensitive and important privileged information.