so, not that i expect free legal advice, but
non-compete clauses in contracts (and soon to be expired, like in 12 hours) are pretty much a joke right? I am moving on from my current place of employment and will be not far from where i currently am. The guy that owns this place is a hothead and I could see him threaten to sue me (won't go through with it, I know deep down he doesn't have the money to do it) but if he does, it's kind of meh anyways. At least from what I have heard.
They are not a joke at all. But it depends on a lot of things.
1) are you going to a direct competitor? Meaning are you leaving Wells Fargo for US Bank. Not leaving Wells Fargo in Minneapolis to run a bank in say Howard Lake.
2) how proactive they are on the cases. Meaning do they have someone dedicated that is going to look at all your stuff when you turn it back in?
3) did you work in an area of monetary interest. Meaning did you work in mortgage underwriting or were you a bank teller.
Now from my experience with these, you are best to just hand over everything, to include any working documents that you may have either worked on or received in order to do your job. Don't take anything!
- do not email clients and tell them you are leaving for another company and being deliberate about.
- do no email yourself documents or products to a personal account
- do no copy and paste to a cloud source or external media
- do not deliberately delete anything unless specified to do so
The Dos:
- do email clients you are leaving and who they can contact for future support
- do email yourself relevant documents you'll need for tax purposes or other financial things (stock options, 401k, etc)
-do hand back all things given to you. Laptops, tablets, thumb drives, etc.
What are the punishments?
Well I've seen people get outed and lose their company matched 401k contributions from the company they left. Stock options are removed. Any bonuses repaid. That is unless they pay to have a firm permanently remove their IP from devices. This typically costs about $3k to do. But can be more.
The worst is if you brought something to your competitor and now they are being sued by your former employer. Legal fees will skyrocket. You'll have to typically find your own lawyer as well. Expect long drawn out litigation process.
But this all depends on how proactive your former employers are. Sometimes they just hold onto stuff until the time has surpassed and get rid of it. In that mean time they are just looking to see if you'll slip up and produce their IP in some aspect. And even that requires proactiveness.