How to Craft and Enforce Non-Competes and Other Restrictive Covenants in the International Context

Employment-context restrictive covenants―non-competes, non-solicitation, confidentiality, and intellectual assignment provisions―are vital for international business in this information age, in and beyond the tech sector. But crafting and enforcing these provisions across national boundaries implicates wildly different legal rules. With each jurisdiction balancing the competing interests here in its own particular way, a multinational operating internationally confronts a range of different restrictive covenant enforceability standards, mandatory rules, and public policies. The most practical strategy is to craft restrictive covenants to conform to "applicable law"―but even that gets opaque when a restrictive covenant applies in more than one country.

This fast-paced program, presented by Donald Dowling of Littler Mendelson P.C., arms you with what you need to know to craft and enforce restrictive covenants for employees and contractors around the world. This program is applicable to any law firm and in-house employment lawyers advising multinationals on issues overseas.

Learning Objectives:

1. Identify standards for enforcing restrictive covenants around the world

2. Discuss the challenge of mandatory post-term payments required to support a non-compete―and the waiver issue

3. Examine tips and strategies for aligning and harmonizing a multinationals' restrictive covenants across countries worldwide

4. Become familiar with choice-of-law clauses and strategies when crafting (and enforcing) restrictive covenants to apply across multiple countries

5. Explore best practices for drafting restrictive covenants in overseas independent contractor (consultant) agreements