Employment agreements often include legal limitations on an employee’s conduct after they leave your company. These constraints are called restrictive covenants and may include non-compete clauses, confidentiality agreements, and prohibitions against customer solicitation.
If you own a business and need to protect your strategic assets, consider working with a San Antonio restrictive covenants lawyer at Begum Peláez-Prada, PLLC. Our business attorneys, led by Managing Partner Sasha Begum, take the time to get to know each company and could draft a restrictive covenant to help you meet your goals.
When your business needs to shield proprietary information to grow or preserve its market share, adding a restrictive covenant to your employment agreements is essential. Contract clauses could bar employees from using or disclosing specific knowledge or information after they leave your employ.
Restrictive covenants in employment agreements could address various issues. Non-compete clauses restrain an employee from competing with their employer for a specified period after employment ends. Non-disclosure clauses prevent an employee from using or disclosing customer lists, trademarks, and other proprietary information after they separate from your company.
A consultation with the San Antonio attorneys at Begum Peláez-Prada, PLLC, would help them understand your business, its potential vulnerabilities, and the most appropriate clauses to use. They could advise you about the different types of restrictive covenants to include in your employment contracts.
Many business owners want to guard against their employees joining a direct competitor or forming their own competing business. To protect their company, many include non-compete clauses in their employment contracts or require employees to sign non-compete agreements.
Texas Business and Commerce Code § 15.50 describes the enforceability of non-compete clauses. The provision must be as narrowly drawn as possible to protect a legitimate business purpose. The restrictions must have a time limit and apply within a specified geographic area, which also must be reasonable.
Non-compete clauses cannot be so broad that they effectively prevent an employee from making a living after they separate from your firm. Our San Antonio attorneys are skilled at drafting contract provisions that protect your business interests while remaining reasonable and meeting the standards for enforceability.
Direct competition is not the only risk that a former employee could pose. During their employment, they may learn your trade secrets or have access to your customers. Restrictive covenants can enjoin your former workers from using that knowledge to harm your business.
You could use a non-solicitation agreement to prevent a former employee from approaching your clients after they leave your business and from poaching other employees. Non-solicitation contracts and clauses are enforceable if they are reasonable in scope, duration, and geographical area.
These contracts or clauses, sometimes referred to as non-disclosure agreements or NDAs, protect your business by prohibiting the signer from sharing sensitive information with others. NDAs are like other restrictive covenants in the sense that a San Antonio attorney must draft them narrowly to protect only the specific information necessary to preserve a business interest. However, NDAs can remain in effect forever.
If you have a business, you should consider contacting a San Antonio restrictive covenants lawyer for help limiting how your employees use what they learned with you after they leave. Begum Peláez-Prada, PLLC, provides legal services to businesses in San Antonio and the surrounding regions, including Dreamhill Estates, Los Jardines, Olmos Park, Prospect Hill, Terrell Hills, and Tobin Hill. Contact us today for assistance as you consider a restrictive covenant for your employment agreements.
