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Former Employer is Telling Customers that I am Violating a Non-Compete Agreement

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  • 09-09-2015, 06:32 PM
    watermelon
    Former Employer is Telling Customers that I am Violating a Non-Compete Agreement
    My question involves labor and employment law for the state of: Texas

    I have resigned from my position 3 months ago. I had no employment agreement at all, no non-compete, non-disclosure, etc.
    I am directly competing with my previous employer for the customers. I've learnt over the last 3 months, that he is spreading rumors, that I have non-compete agreement with him, and if the customers make business with me, he will sue them. What legal action can I take?
  • 09-09-2015, 06:47 PM
    jk
    Re: Employer Interfering with My Business
    did you get your customer list from your previous employer?
  • 09-09-2015, 06:58 PM
    watermelon
    Re: Employer Interfering with My Business
    No, I did not get the list from them. I directly contacted all of them after I left the company.
  • 09-09-2015, 07:07 PM
    cbg
    Re: Employer Interfering with My Business
    If you did not have any kind of non-compete, you are free to try to sign his customers. However, he is also free to try to protect his business and keep them. If he tells them you have a non-compete, you tell them that you don't.

    I tell you this from experience. Any attempt for you to use the law to stop him from doing what he's doing, is just as likely to end up requiring that you stop doing what you're doing.
  • 09-09-2015, 07:14 PM
    watermelon
    Re: Employer Interfering with My Business
    Thanks! I just got tired of convincing customers that I am "safe" to work with :)
  • 09-09-2015, 07:19 PM
    cbg
    Re: Employer Interfering with My Business
    You're going to have to get used to it. Your right to build your business is not superior to his right to protect his. Nor is his right superior to yours. You both have the right to compete for the customers equally.
  • 09-09-2015, 07:35 PM
    jk
    Re: Employer Interfering with My Business
    Quote:

    Quoting watermelon
    View Post
    No, I did not get the list from them. I directly contacted all of them after I left the company.

    so your former employer had absolutely no business dealings with these possible customers while you worked there?

    and of course you would have contacted them directly. How else would you contact them. My question was; where did you get your possible customers name.
    Quote:

    Quoting cbg
    View Post
    If you did not have any kind of non-compete, you are free to try to sign his customers.

    really? I know a business owner in my area that paid over $1,000,000 to his former employer for trying to sign his former employers customers. It isn't quite as simple as he can sign the customers if there was no non-compete.
  • 09-09-2015, 10:32 PM
    Taxing Matters
    Re: Employer Interfering with My Business
    Quote:

    Quoting jk
    View Post
    I know a business owner in my area that paid over $1,000,000 to his former employer for trying to sign his former employers customers. It isn't quite as simple as he can sign the customers if there was no non-compete.

    In order to be liable to the former employer for soliciting the former employer's customers the employee must have entered into some agreement that prevented him from doing that. It is often not a true non compete agreement as those tend to be disfavored in the law. Instead, those often done through more limited restrictions on contacting customers for some period time, trade secret agreements in which the customer list is included as a trade secret, or other agreements that restrict the right of the employee to contact former customers, take customers lists, etc., but otherwise do not prohibit the employee from competing. But whatever the name of the agreement, there had to be some agreement that prohibited the employee from soliciting the customers. There is no law that prohbits a former employee from soliciting his former employer’s customers after all. That’s the very reason why employers seek these kinds of agreements in the first place. Thus, it's a pretty good bet that the company in your area that obtained that million dollar payment had an agreement of some sort with the employee that the employee violated.
  • 09-10-2015, 04:13 AM
    jk
    Re: Employer Interfering with My Business
    There are tortious interference matters that may be applicable (which you did not touch on at all) as well as unlawful appropriation of business information (such as taking a former enployers customer list which is the only thing the guy I know was found liable for). There was no non-compete agreement or any other agreement in place. It was based solely on him taking the clientele list from his employer. He even argued he took no "list" but the customers he had contacted were customers of his former employer who he knew of his employment with the former employer, and that was the kicker. So, in other words; unlawfully appropriated business information.
  • 09-10-2015, 06:29 AM
    cbg
    Re: Employer Interfering with My Business
    And I know of a case where BOTH business owners were barred from talking to each other's clients. So what?

    In the absence of any non-compete agreement, both business owners are free to compete for the same clients until or unless a court says otherwise.
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