End of contract

[ASB]

BGG,

Get your cojones out. The basic legal premise with any restraint is that it is uneforceable. It is then down to the restrainer to sue. It is then down to a judge to decide in the restraint is reasonable enough to be enforced. Ther judge is not empowered to amend it. So he can't say for example "well 6 months would be OK".

Further dameages are restricted to actual loss. In order for this to be non zero the retrainer must have some sort of protectable interest. It's highly debatable whether there is one given the circumstances.

So, take the contract, risk getting sued and see what happen. Sure they'll probably try and frighten you. At this point tell them to stuff off, or get your lawyer to tell them to stuff off. It's put up or shut up.

By all means take legal advice as to the risk of the clause being enforcable. It will cost you a couple of hundred.

Another issue is that they may have contract with the end client which they might try and enforce. If the end client are making you the offer you can be pretty sure that they have cleared it with thier lawyers.

[TheBigD]

I was in an almost identical situation a couple of months ago. The only difference was that the client where I was based, was happy use my agency. From reading this, and from reading other posts at the time, I knew that I probably didn't need to go through the agency as they're "3rd Party" clauses are often unenforcable, but I got what I wanted out of the agent and so wasn't to bothered if he was making a bit on the side.

A previous colleuge of mine was also in the same situation, and went direct. The agency huffed and puffed, but a couple of soliciters letters brought them to their senses and they dropped any action. Still, he said it was a nervy couple f months for him while it was going on.

[richy]

Advice

I've been in exactly the same situation... unlike you I;ve never got close to escaping the agency.

tips:

0) don't refer to yourself being "employed" by company x unless you are PAYE, i expect you are a ltd company like the rest of us.

1) don't inform the agency what you are doing, they may never find out. Tell them you have got a permie job and hang up.

2) those clauses are unenforceable. Until you get a Letter Before Action or Court Request don't even bother to communicate or negotiate. They'll settle out of court if it did come to that.

and of cause, don't worry, it's not worth getting stressed about when you're already moving jobs!

Cheers, rich.