Ensuring the Legality of Digital Signatures for Non-Solicitation Agreements in India

How to eSign a document: digital signature legality for Non-Solicitation Agreement in India

all right let's get some confusion out of the way on some very frequently used contractual provisions non-compete and non solicit they are different they kind of overlap sometimes in practice but they are different and importantly non-competes are actually held invalid as a matter of public policy in California they're moving that way on non solicits in California as well not the case in New York and this is very relevant to which choice of law you use in your agreement watch my video on choice of law and venue selection for more detail there but it's important depending on which state's laws you use whether these types of provisions that I'm talking about in this video will actually be binding so non-compete non-compete as a provision that you would use when you're severing ties with someone employee partner customer consultant and you don't want them to go provide the same services or go work for or work with someone that's a direct competitor of you maybe you don't want them to go out and start a competing business when they leave yours that's what a non-compete provision is for now like I mentioned in California we as a state consider that to be void as a matter of public policy because California is very much Pro individual consumer employee partner californ wants you to be able to go out and do business and not be restricted there is one exception if you are a business owner you had a partner and you guys went your separate ways and that leaving business partner signs a non-compete agreement not to compete with the business they left that one's binding when you sell ownership you leave that is actually a scenario where a non-compete can be upheld I'm oversimplifying these videos are very general but that is an exception and that is generally how non-competes work there they need to be time bound you can't just be forever you can't compete that would be held invalid usually there needs to be a geographic region that they are limited to as well now you can't say that someone can never start the same type of business anywhere ever it needs to be in Southern California for two years for instance that's a non-compete now Ananse elicit is different and you'll start to see as I explained this how they can overlap in practice because a non solicit prevents the person that is signing the non-solicitation clause or agreement that has it in there that they cannot solicit partners employees customers of your business so you know you sign with a consultant for instance and you don't want them to come and poach your employees or you know try to steal your business partner that would be a non solicitation clause and also since a consultant typically is going to see your files your data your customer list you don't want them to go solicit all your customers and take your business once they learn what you do that's an on solicitation clause so they can kind of overlap because in order to compete you may need to solicit and in order to solicit you're probably going to be soliciting them for something similar to what would be competitive so these things kind of interact and that's where it can get very tricky and nuanced with reviewing non-compete and non solicit provisions in agreements and trying to figure out what is and is not binding additionally we're not talking here about well what if you sign a non-compete in California but then you're in another state and the non-compete was for all of the United States how does that work how does that play out the purpose of this video is to explain to you what non-compete and non solicits are I would definitely reach out to an attorney if you have an on solicitation or a non-compete situation in front of you and keep in mind that the very very important scenario where this comes up that I work with clients on very frequently is if you leave a big company or a company at all to go start your own business both the non-compete and the non solicit are probably relevant if you leave and you're under a non-compete but you didn't have ownership that you sold back you probably are not bound by that non-compete doesn't mean they won't try to sue you however if you leave and you want to take some people with you that maybe you enjoyed working with that you found at that employer that's solicitation so you may be able to leave you may be able to start a competing business but you can't solicit anyone from that business you are at without violating the non-solicitation clause and I commonly find that people don't realize all these provisions are in your pulling that paperwork that you sign when you get hired which you're excited to be hired you know you sign everything it's just how it works you sign the employment paperwork check that stuff make sure those aren't in there and if you're leaving the start of business have an attorney review your employment paperwork and advise you on the timing of all of that because you can be very careful about when you leave when the other people you might solicit leave to avoid violating those provisions and then still set out to do what you want to do so non-compete non solicit hope this was helpful thanks for tuning in