No Notice Period

[paulybloke]

My contract with a well known agency has no notice period written into it - neither for them nor for me.
They insist this means that I cannot give any notice to leave contract early in the event that I am offered the job of a lifetime elsewhere.
I maintain (and certainly thought this at the time of signing) that this simply meant there was no notice period!

Regardless of the above myself, the agency and the client all know that my contract can be terminated (should such circumstances arise) at any point without notice.

I'm not bothered about any IR35 implications of this but I do wish to know whether their assertion holds any credibility and if so how I could tackle getting out of it should someone offer me 100K to stack shelves.

[SueEllen]

Hire your own lawyer (look over to CUK navigation panel for names under "Legal:IR35" or do a forum search) get them to rewrite the contract with nice clauses in.

Most agencies will agree to contract changes if you get a lawyer involved simply because a lot of them put stupid (read: clauses that won't stand up in a court of law) in the contract, and having your own lawyer go through it means you are the type of contractor they know they can't mess around.

Edited to say: Quite a few of them will charge less than a day's earnings to go through the contract as they are use to them.

[Wanderer]

My contract with a well known agency has no notice period written into it - neither for them nor for me.

Sounds like a bit of a poorly worded contract. Now that's unusual. If you do a search then you will find other discussions about this one, it comes up from time to time.

What if the agency decide to terminate it? Will they pay you off for the duration of the contract? I don't think so!

Likewise, if you decide to leave early? Will try try to compel you (actually your LTD) to complete the contract? Will they seek damages from your LTD for work not carried out? Who would take the damages, the agency or client? Do you have the right of substitution whereby you could subcontract the work?

As SueEllen says, a lawyer would help talk some sense into the contract and figure out exactly what it means. The agency probably thinks it means that you have to work the whole contract but they can terminate it with no notice.

To be honest though, I don't worry that much about contracts and the stupid tulip agencies put into them because I could just cease trading with my LTD and start a new one so they wouldn't even get anything if they sued the company. That makes the contract against my LTD pretty much unenforceable.

My inclination is to sign whatever they put in front of me (within reason ) and then I'll hire a lawyer to argue the point if a dispute ever arises.

[SueEllen]

Just to add - make sure the client is aware that you really want to take the contract on if you have tulip with the agency while negotiating the contract with them.

You did take down some client details didn't you at interview?

[paulybloke]

Actually this contract has all the i's dotted and t's crossed from the agency point of view and I've had some quite scary threats from the legal team when we discussed this once before...'sue for loss of revenue' was the term used which could be huge depending on how early I left and/or how much their margin is.

They 'say' that they also cannot terminate me but in reality thats just not true the end client can get rid of me just like anyone else on less than 1 hours notice should they see fit to find a reason - thats life and I have no issue with that.

Strangely given the market at the moment their are some fascinating jobs going which would be promotions for me and I'm unable to even look at them though for quite some time yet unless I can find a loophole.

[SueEllen]

Actually this contract has all the i's dotted and t's crossed from the agency point of view and I've had some quite scary threats from the legal team when we discussed this once before...'sue for loss of revenue' was the term used which could be huge depending on how early I left and/or how much their margin is.

So? Your point is?

Agencies always say the contract has been reviewed etc etc. and their legal department has done this and that, doesn't mean it has.

If you have actually had contracts reviewed you can easily see the difference between one made up by someone at the agency and one that has actually been in front of a lawyer.

They 'say' that they also cannot terminate me but in reality thats just not true the end client can get rid of me just like anyone else on less than 1 hours notice should they see fit to find a reason - thats life and I have no issue with that.

Strangely given the market at the moment their are some fascinating jobs going which would be promotions for me and I'm unable to even look at them though for quite some time yet unless I can find a loophole.

Why are you taking on a contract you want to get out of it? If you don't want the contract to the end of the term then don't take it on.

And btw if you are desperate to get out of a contract the client will normally oblige. The agency doesn't have powers to do anything about it regardless of what is written down.

[Wanderer]

'sue for loss of revenue' was the term used which could be huge depending on how early I left and/or how much their margin is.

You may also want to point out that if the client terminates the contract early then by the same token you could sue them for loss of revenue which would be substantial in comparison to their margin. Realistically it's not going to happen though, is it. If they did sue your company then it can just cease trading so they won't get tulip (except a huge legal bill). If you sue them then you will mostl likely lose because it's not an enforceable contract term.

Can you tell us who this agency is, name and shame? To be honest, it doesn't sound like the sort of people that I would do business with if I could avoid it.