Talk:Non-compete clause

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 27 August 2021 and 2 December 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Shawn Sullivan Depaul. Peer reviewers: Lawperson2021, Rebraun17.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 05:21, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Proposed merge
I agree with merging this article with non-compete agreement - which title should be the target of the merge? bd2412 T 21:48, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
 * I agree with the merge. I have a slight preference for the non-compete clause because many times the non-compete clause is contained within a larger document (such as an asset purchase agreement). Although the word "agreement" is broad enough to emcompass a single clause, the word is often viewed to mean the document itself rather than the underlying mutual agreement of the parties. In addition, as it stands I think that the non-compete clause is a better article, so its history deserves to be carried on the main page rather than the redirect page. However, I don't think it matters too much which title we use as long as the redirect is made to the other title.  -- DS1953 talk  22:34, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
 * I agree with DS1953 -- although it's possible to merge histories, depending. Anyway, clause is probably more common in a technical sense, although the general sense usually uses "agreement", but then they're talking about the clause anyway. --Dhartung | Talk 03:37, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Merge complete. --Dhartung | Talk 23:41, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Though merge has already been completed, would a re-name to "Covenant Not to Compete" make more sense, overall? It would apply more generally to both agreements and clauses.  We're really arguing semantics here, not sure that it's worth the change.  Would suggest redirect of -agreement and -clause to page if so.DOH (talk) 22:15, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Page layout
Is there a reason this article goes into such depth about Virginia? Is VA that different from the rest of the country? An "in the United States" section would seem about 50 times ;-) as useful, even if it doesn't go into so many specifics. --Dhartung | Talk 23:41, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
 * The enforceability of CNCs is governed by state common law. Although many states have similar requirements for determining the enforceability of a CNC, there are numerous variations. The requirements in Virginia are not the same as they are in Delaware or California.  To maintain accuracy in the article, someone would need to research the variations and general requirements of a CNC.  I have researched the Virginia law, and although I do not warrant its accuracy, it is supported by stare decisis.  I suggest maintaining different sections for each state until broad generalizations can be made accurately. -Bpiereck 22:51, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
 * As a broad generalization, I propose a statement that in the employee - employer context, reasonable non-compete agreements are valid in almost all states. What is considered to be 'reasonable' varies from state to state. California is an exception.  In California, employee - employer non-compete restraints are void regardless of their reasonableness. Kindsvater 22 September 2006

User DS1953 (who I believe is not a California attorney) had added language, twice, conclusively stating that a non-compete agreement held enforceable in a state will automatically be held enforceable in California. As an attorney who has litigated and researched this precise issue, and having first hand experience preventing a non-California noncompete judgment from being enforced in California, I deleted this inaccurate statement. However, instead of deleting it in its entirety, which would be appropriate, I changed it to reflect that this issue has not yet been conclusively decided by an appellate court. In Application Group v Hunter Group (1998) 61 Cal.App.4th 881, 887 fn. 3, the California court of appeals noted that a Maryland court had adjudicated that a noncompete agreement was valid. Nonetheless, the California court of appeal held that the noncompete agreement was void and unenforceable within California. The full faith and credit clause issue was not addressed. Kindsvater 22 September 2006
 * You are right that I am not a California attorney - but I was not the one who added the language you refer to. All I did was add "citation needed" because someone else added the language without giving any support. My assumption has always been, as you say, that a California court would NOT enforce a judgment which was against the state's public policy.  I don't claim to know the answer.  -- DS1953 talk  03:43, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Is there a reason there is an external link to "Non-Compete Enforecement Blog: Articles and Resources"? THis is a Michigan law blog. Can we delete? slava 04:49, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

It is intersting that CA is a big part of this page. Actually, each state has a different take on non-compete clauses. And people looking at this issue won't get far unless they know what the law is in their state. Is there a reason why we should not have information for all 50 states? In order to be useful, there are several critera which vary state to state (ie seperate consideration).

I would have to echo that. Noncompete laws vary by state and, while most states tend to have similar broad concepts, the specifics of what will in fact be enforceable vary widely. Russellbesq (talk) 13:07, 5 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Here is what I propose: move the parts that are truly general (such as the line if the Massachusetts section that traces the history back to English common law) into the general; and then instead of dividing by state, divide by nuance. In other words, note that some states require a "Legitimate business interest", and list any that do not; note that some states require consideration at the time of employment, and list those states. bd2412  T 17:30, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree with the move of the history - and I think that worked well. However, I do think there needs to be a state-by-state review, as typically, I have found that people and companies are interested in knowing how the noncompete agreement will work in their state. (It may make some sense to make it alphabetical so people can quickly find the states that they are interested in.) Russellbesq (talk) 14:03, 6 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I wonder if a state-by-state review, while certainly valid in a treatise on non-competition agreements, is not too detailed for what Wikipedia can and should be. There are certainly significant differences in how states interpret and apply non-compete provisions, as well as many subtle nuances.  Can one article ever hope to adequately cover all those differences, major and minor?  -- DS1953 talk  19:01, 6 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I also tend to think that a state-by-state will be cumbersome to the page. If a state has a particularly nuanced and unusual approach to the topic, perhaps there should simply be a separate article for that state. Also, let us not forget that this article will not be limited to the U.S. bd2412  T 19:53, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Terminology issue
The Edwards decision uses the term "noncompetition agreement." It looks like a lot of jurisdictions outside of the U.S. use a hyphen, though. I have a feeling this is one of those strange American English/British English issues, such as how Americans use trademark while other countries use "trade-mark" or "trade mark." The terminology issue should be noted briefly.--Coolcaesar (talk) 07:11, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

Misleading statement
"The extent to which non-compete clauses are legally allowed varies per jurisdiction. Some jurisdictions, such as the state of California in the US, invalidate non-compete-clauses for all but equity stakeholders in businesses.[1]"

That's inaccurate - it invalidates no-compete-clauses for all but *partners* and *equity stakeholders* that are *selling* their *equity*. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.198.57.217 (talk) 00:48, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

This article is a mess
The problem is that a lot of the lawyers contributing to this article may be good at writing for law reviews, but not for a general audience. Few lawyers have the necessary background in journalism (for example, I interned for a tabloid television show which was reporting on Michael Jackson's trial at the time) to know how to restate complex abstract concepts in plain English for nonlawyers without sacrificing intellectual rigor! The result is that we have a lot of articles like this one which are very difficult for nonlawyers to read (because full inline citations are rarely used in most other styles of writing). The other extreme is that we have other articles on legal concepts that are predominantly written by nonlawyers (or not very well trained lawyers) which are hilariously inaccurate and nonsensical. --Coolcaesar (talk) 07:33, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Dead Links
under references (i think), there's an outbound link to a book sales website titled "Negotiating, Drafting and Enforcing Noncompetition Agreements & Related Restrictive Covenants (Book)", which points to nothing more than a book sales page. i think it should be removed. SentientSystem (talk) 03:30, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

Canada (the country) section - refers back to US-State laws
I doubt that the entire country of Canada has on set of laws, particlarily, Quebec. I don't know exactly how to phrase this problem I see, but why is Virginia superior to Canada in the article? Cafe Nervosa (talk) 16:50, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Cross-reference antipoaching agreements?
Should this article reference the related subject of antipoaching agreements and the article antipoaching? EditorMax of RichmondFR (talk) 13:49, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

This page is a list of countries and localities
This page is a list of countries and localities that have noncompete agreements. It's completely unreadable and of no interest to most readers. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 13:19, 29 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Fully concur with your criticism. Because they are enforceable in most jurisdictions, it seems to me that it would be much easier to broadly discuss them in general terms as enforceable, then provide a table or list with the exact number of years for which they are enforceable in each jurisdictions, and then a discussion of the outlier jurisdictions that refuse to enforce them, like California.--Coolcaesar (talk) 16:18, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

Proposed split
I am proposing splitting the section on the United States into a new article. The section on the United States is nearly 5x as long as the sections on all other countries combined, and is the only country section that is split into subsections. -170.213.22.196 (talk) 18:48, 16 May 2024 (UTC)
 * I am not opposing this idea but probably this is a better reason to expand the rest of the article. Jorahm (talk) 16:51, 19 May 2024 (UTC)
 * I would support doing both. BD2412  T 13:42, 20 May 2024 (UTC)
 * thinking about this again I would support it as long as there is a good summary still here on this page. Jorahm (talk) 17:01, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I support this split. The subsection is very large and the topic is clearly notable. QuicoleJR (talk) 00:25, 4 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I agree this would be a significant improvement Jameson Nightowl (talk) 04:34, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

UK Crown law
The section on the UK includes the following: "In the Crown dependencies, as there are no directly relevant laws it is generally accepted that UK Crown law applies"

I've never seen the expression "UK Crown law" before. I'm pretty sure it's not a thing. A UK law only applies in one of the Crown Dependencies if the Privy Council has issued an Order in Council to apply it, which it only does with the consent of the relevant local government. If there are no such orders covering UK competition law, then UK competition law doesn't apply there. Hairy Dude (talk) 10:47, 19 May 2024 (UTC)