Pat Kenny has left RTE Radio after 41 years with the National Broadcaster and will now ply his trade on Newstalk. Whilst not an employment law or HR issue as such it does raise the problem of employees working in competition with the business or leaving to work for a competitor as is the case here.
you will note Newstalk was previously involved in a high profile case of employees leaving with the entire "Off The Ball" team leave, however the employees were not covered by a restrictive covenant, but were required to complete a period of Garden Leave before they could take up new employment.
Restrictive covenants are typically used in such industries, also called non compete clauses, and we have provided guidance here for employers who wish to strengthen their employment contracts, and protect their business from losing its best employees to competitors. Such agreements do come with caveats that they must be reasonable and seek to further a legitimate business aim by protecting a trade secret of some kind. They should also be reasonable in their duration and the geographic area that they would cover, a six month restriction over a 50 mile radius would be preferable to a 24 month restriction over the Island of Ireland.
To read further posts on restrictive covenants click here.
