Legal Question in Employment Law in California

Dear Attorney,

I request your help with the following.

I am working for Client A on EAD through Vendor B & Company C (my W2 holder) in California. I now want to join Vendor B & work for Client A. What are the ramifications based on below?

This is my agreement with C :-

During the term of the assignment & for a period of 1 Year following the termination of the business/employment relationship between C & cygent, cygent will not do any of the following:

1. Directly or indirectly call on, solicit, or take away (directly or through another entity) any of C's customers or potential customers cygent became aware of as a result of performing services for the above referenced assignment; or

2. Directly or indirectly offer or attempt to offer (directly or through another entity) services that were offered via C for the same projects that were performed under the agreements between C & cygent, or

3. solicit or hire away any of C's employees or contractors C became aware of as a result of performing services under agreements between cygent & C.

cygent will be held responsible for any losses suffered by C due to violation of the terms stated in this agreement. jurisdiction is County of Alameda, California.

Thank you & Regards,

CYGENT


Asked on 6/30/10, 3:50 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys

You cannot do what you are saying you want to do. Under that language, it appears to me you could go to work for B on projects other than for Client A and you can go to work for B for client A on projects unrelated to your current assignment through C, but you cannot work on the same project for A on behalf of anyone but C through B.

The only alternative would be to negotiate a payment to C. The only losses C would suffer are whatever their net profit is on selling your services to B. So take out your pay, plus any benefits, plus employment taxes, and they may not make so much off of you that they wouldnt' be willing to accept some lump sum buy-out of your contract.

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Answered on 6/30/10, 8:01 pm


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