Protecting Your Business

Businesses run on information, and employees, particularly key members of staff, often have access to a lot of sensitive information about the company’s finances, customers, plans, intellectual property (IP) and processes. Depending on the context, all of this may be commercially sensitive. At the same time, businesses also have a reputation to protect; one that can be damaged by what disaffected or ex-employees say about it in public.

As an employer, you have a legitimate and enforceable interest that needs to be protected through careful drafting of contracts and clearly written policies that clearly outline employees’ obligations with respect to privileged or commercially sensitive information. It is also a good idea to establish security protocols for accessing, copying and downloading information that might be sensitive and guidelines for employees’ access to company social media assets, or references to their employer in their own social accounts.

And while businesses have a right to protect themselves, employees themselves also have rights, including not being prevented by employers from following and developing their careers. Restrictive covenants is an area of law where courts have intervened to decide what is acceptable and what is not, so you should take considerable care and consult legal experts in drafting these kinds of documents. We will draft and/or review restrictive covenants to protect your business, whether that is to prevent employees from taking key personnel or clients with them when they leave, using or sharing strategic and business-sensitive information post-termination, or, in some cases, working for direct competitors or setting up in direct competition and using privileged information to their advantage.

We can:

• Draft restrictive covenants to minimise the any impact ex-employees might have.
• Draft contracts and staff policies to reflect your business requirements.
• Provide social media policies to protect your business’s reputation and advise on how to implement and enforce these with individual staff.
• Advise on with staff leaving and the enforcement of contracts, including initiating and managing court action where needed.