Can non-competes be enforced after expiration? I had a non-compete that with company X that I could not work directly or indirectly for company Y for 10 months. I left company X and I became a contractor for company Z who assured me that the non-compete would not hold up for abc reasons (I was promoted so the old non-compete didn't hold up) and they were confident they could defeat the non-compete if necessary. They then placed me at company Y. I worked for 10+ months as a contractor and started as a full time employee recently. Now that it has been past 10 months, and company Y never found out or questioned my status, is there anything they can do if they found out I had been working there the whole time? thanks,
Can non-competes be enforced after expiration? Strictly speaking, it can no longer be enforced. Instead, company X may still obtain remedies for your breach of contract (I am definitely not "condemning" you, as I totally understand your position; I'm just explaining the vulnerability to which you are exposed). What you call expiration is more of a "freezing period" during which you were prohibited to work for company Y. But what matters is the concept of statute of limitations, which is the period during which company X may sue you for breach of the non-compete clause (and hence, breach of contract). The statute of limitations for breach of contract varies by jurisdiction. In jurisdictions of the U.S., typically it is three or six years. It was risky for you to rely on company Z's "assurance", especially if Z did not memorialize --in writing-- that it would defend you in the event that company X sues you for breach of contract (after all, Z alleged being "confident they could defeat the non-compete if necessary"). Furthermore, company Z's allegation that your promotion nullifies or supersedes the "old" non-compete seems devoid of merit, at least at first glance. One would need to know the terms of your contract with company X to ascertain whether company Z's assessment is accurate.
I would recommend talking to an adult person in HR. I'm quite sure they will notice that what your manager wants to do is more than dodgy, and doing something dodgy may be in the interest of your manager, but not in the interest of the company. The best thing is to go to HR, acting as if a mistake has been made, and point out to them what your start date was, and that the new contract has the incorrect starting date, and they need to fix this mistake or you can't sign the contract. If they insist you sign it, then you DON'T sign it. If they say you will be fired if you don't sign it, then you tell them that in that case you would get legal advice. BTW. You definitely don't sign this as it is. PS. This answer was posted on workplace.stackexchange, not law.stackexchange, so please don't complain if there is no legal content.
is it legally acceptable to state that 7.5 hours is the standard amount No. Because you are a contractor not employee, there is no "standard" to refer to. You are only entitled to what your contract provides for, that is £N per day no matter how much time you worked. That said, if there is no word "overtime" in the contract, you cannot use one to justify how much you charge. You can, though, charge for weekend days (unless the contract explicitly prohibits working on weekends). what should be done about going into the future with this work and asking for a revised contract? 1) Learn the lesson; 2) Make up your mind about what you want to be paid for: hours, days or output; 3) Discuss/negotiate contract terms with your clients.
That is, you don't even have to give them a copy of the contract. In the same way you might reference some legal code without actually copying the legal code directly into the contract. If you do not communicate material terms of the contract to your contractor, the contract will be unenforceable due to lack of meeting of minds. Referencing "some legal code", provided that that code is publicly available is fine: your contractor can look it up and decide if they are happy with it. But doing the same with "Independent Contractor Agreement #123" will only work if you provide a copy of it to your contractor. For example, it can be attached to the paper being signed as a Schedule. So, in a nut shell, abstracting prose out is fine as long as it is communicated/attached.
Jurisdiction has not been provided, so I've written a general answer: Not necessarily; often, such provisions clauses will have their own expiration dates, for example "for five years after signing, X", with X still being valid after cancellation up to 5 years(so if you cancel after 3 years, X is still valid for 2 more years), or "for two years after cancellations, Y"(especially common with non-compete clauses) where the time-limit of Y starts when the contract is cancelled. Other clauses are meant to indeed be enforced forever, such as some non-disclosure, non-disparagement, or indemnity clauses. For example, an indemnity clause in a contract that prevents a party from suing the counter-party for work done under the contract would be pointless if it could be bypassed by a party terminating the agreement. There are lots of legal limits, based on the terms of the provision, and its nature, all governed by the contract law of the jurisdiction under which the contract was drafted under and/or is governed by (this is generally obvious, except for some cross-border contracts, which generally will have a declaration as to whose laws apply). It is not inherently abusive, but can certainly be abused. What is considered abusive often varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction (not only on this issue, but on legal issues in general). It depends on the jurisdiction, and generally on the terms of the provision itself. If the court asked to enforce the terms of the agreement feels that the provision is illegal or abusive, they won't be enforced (and possibly the entire document declared null and void, depending on the central-ness of the illegal or abusive provision; some provisions specifically state that invaliding the provision doesn't invalidate the whole contract to try to prevent this). If they don't feel the provision is illegal or abusive, they will generally enforce it.
There is no law (that I can find) that requires the mason to keep records, and therefore require them to be produced, for work carried out that long ago. I have not been able to locate the applicable legislation for 2006 but, on the (near certain) assumption that it was either the same as now or has been superceded, businesses only need to keep records for 6 years according to the Revenue's section entitled Keeping records: If you run a business, you must keep certain records for tax purposes. Your records can be used to confirm information contained in your tax returns and they should clearly show the accounting process. If your accounts are prepared by an agent or accountant, they may keep your records on your behalf. However, you are ultimately responsible for your record keeping. If you are in a partnership, the precedent partner is responsible for keeping records. You must keep the original of these documents for six years. This retention period is mirrored for limited companies at section 285 Companies Act 2014: An accounting record required to be kept by section 281 or information or a return referred to in section 283 (2) shall be preserved by the company concerned for a period of at least 6 years after the end of the financial year containing the latest date to which the record, information or return relates. That said, there's no harm in asking.
Does a contract become null and void if some or most of its terms were not followed by one (or both) of the parties? No. Parties' temporary or systematic waiver of their contractual rights does not alter the validity or terms of that contract. Parties entitled to resume enforcement of their rights anytime. A party's noncompliance with his obligations gives the counterparty a viable claim of breach of contract, although the proper approach would be to first try to solve the dispute outside the court. In the employment scenario you describe, the employee is entitled to --at least-- back pay as per the second contract (the difference between $75 and $50) subject to the statute of limitations, which under NJ is six years for contract disputes. See Hagans v. Nickerson, Superior Court of NJ (Oct. 2022), (citing NJSA A:14-1(a)). This precludes the recovery of some of the back pay if &quot;the employee wishes to enforce during his 7th or 8th year of employment&quot;. A &quot;retroactive&quot; enforcement of other rights might be available, depending on the nature of those rights and other details. But nothing prevents the employee to henceforth enforce all of his rights pursuant to the current contract. Can the employer argue that the employee &quot;waived his right&quot; to the second contract by not enforcing it and acting as if it never existed? As explained above, no. Nor does it make sense for the employer to argue in terms of &quot;a right to the second contract&quot;. A contract establishes a set of rights [and obligations], whence &quot;a right to a set of rights&quot; would reflect the employer's poor understanding of the ramifications of the contract he signed.
Do I have standing to sue a credit bureau or lender after being approved for a loan but being prevented from signing due to their error? Unfortunately, no. The email you got from the loan agency reflects that no contract was formed yet. The email merely is the loan agency's expression of interest to proceed toward the formation of that contract. Absent that formation of the contract, even if for reasons beyond your control, you are not entitled to the benefits or consideration(s) the contract would provide. Nor would the lender be entitled to your compliance with the terms of that contract, terms which might not even be informed --let alone known-- to you. There is no legal obligation from one party to the other. Lastly, the agency's or bureau's faulty process/questionnaire is not actionable either. Lender's reluctance to employ an alternative method is within his freedom of contract.