If employment contract supercedes all previous agreements, does that include un-included parts of offer letter? I'm a software developer at a company that develops software for the healthcare industry. Recently I received an interview call from another company that creates pretty much the same products that we do. When joining my current company, the offer letter was sent to me by email and I only signed it a month later when I actually joined. At the time of signing the offer letter by my employer and me, I was also given the employment contract which was signed by my employer and me. I'm a staff employee now. The offer letter states: During and after the period of employment with the company, you will not engage in any endeavor or activity which conflicts with the interests and business of the company or join a competing organization, for a minimum period of two years. The employment contract however, does not contain the above paragraph. There is a clause on confidentiality and non disparagement, but nothing that says that I should not join a competing organization. The employment contract also contains this clause: Entire agreement; Amendments: a) This Agreement supersedes and cancels any and all previous understandings, representations and agreements of whatever nature between the parties with respect to the matters covered herein. b) This Agreement sets forth the entire agreement between the parties with respect to the subject matter herein and may be amended only by an agreement in writing signed by all the parties hereto. Does this mean that I can interview with and join the other company or is it implicitly understood that the paragraph in the offer letter should be honored?
The entire purpose of the Entire Agreement clause is to say that this contract is the agreement, and anything previously negotiated is not part of the agreement. I don't know why they would fail to include that in the contract.
If everyone hired after date X has a different contract from anyone hired before that date it is not discriminatory. (As long as they do nothing naughty like changing the contract, hiring three black people, changing the contract back).
What does the contract say? If it says that they have the right to unilaterally alter the terms by providing you with notice by email, then they have the right to unilaterally alter the terms by providing you with notice by email. These types of service contracts typically have such terms.
Its difficult to tell without seeing the exact paperwork, and the exact meaning of without prejudice varies by jurisdiction (I think UK is the same as here in NZ though). If an agreement is reached through communications marked "without prejudice" it should be valid in court to the extent that it shows an agreement was reached and what the agreement was (but the court will not generally look at the documents marked without prejudice for other reasons &ndash; e.g. admissions made &ndash; if no agreement is reached). There are a couple of other relevant things to mention &ndash; although not strictly part of your question: Lawyers are officers of the court, and have duties to the court, which include acting ethically. So, provided it's a reputable law firm, it is reasonable to (somewhat) trust their solicitors in procedural matters. My understanding is that courts encourage anything that will help settle a matter out of court &ndash; hence the whole idea of "without prejudice" letters being valid. I believe that the court will uphold an agreement reached through communication of without prejudice emails as it's in their interests. If you have these kinds of concerns, you can raise them with their solicitor, suggesting that you would prefer the final document to not be without prejudice, even if it only refers to the matter and agreement, without sensitive stuff. I imagine they would be only to happy to oblige, as they can bill their client for another letter!
People are laid off all the time when sales are down, the market is bad, etc: there is no legal "right to a job" except whatever is in your employment contract. There is a legal concept of promissory estoppel which boils down to promises being binding. However, there has to be a clear and definite promise, not for example a statement like "we hope to bring you back after this is over". Normally, the employer can argue that they have the right to fire you regardless of performance, and that would be the end of it. Let's say you have it in writing, and it is clear that they unconditionally promise to hire you back: you would want to (e)stop them from arguing that they have the right to fire you. The underlying idea of promissory estoppel is that such a promise keeps them from making that argument. But: it is not enough that they made the promise, you also had to rely on the promise and act / forbear from acting in some way because of that promise. It could be, for example, taking another job, or moving to another country, or simply looking for another job. The hard part, then, would be getting a clear and definite promise.
One of the principles of contract law is that the offer and acceptance are evaluated based on the objectively ascertainable intentions as judged by a reasonable person. On the facts that you have provided - even if your friend claims that they filled it out wrong, there is no reason for someone to objectively think so, particularly given the fact that they went to the trouble of writing the information in. However, this will depend on what kind of legally binding document this is. If it is, in fact, a contract, then the employer must accept it before it becomes legally binding, and they must actually communicate this acceptance to your friend (the offeror). If this is a policy document, then it is only legally binding if another contract has said that it is legally binding - generally, (smart) employers will include a clause in their employment contract stating that you are to adhere to policies but that those policies do not form part of the contract. If that is the case, then your friend is legally bound by the terms of the policy and will breach their employment contract if they do not adhere to this policy. This is unlikely to be an issue of contract law in and of itself - your friend cannot unilaterally bind their employer to terms as he sees fit. More information - including the nature of the document and other agreements that were made - would be required to provide more useful information (and that's what you would give to a lawyer).
I did not write "confidential" on my letter, but I assumed a business proposal is automatically considered as a confidential material. An incorrect assumption unfortunately. Unless you have a confidentiality agreement (NDA) with the first company, they and their agents are not under any legal obligation to keep information you share with them confidential. How is the legal situation here? There is none on your side. You lied about a direct question asked and were caught in the lie. Company A had no obligation to keep what you sent confidential. Even if they did, that may not (depending on how the confidentiality agreement is worded) keep the employee of company A stating that they had received the same proposal. Chalk this one up to a lesson on confidentiality and honesty in business. There are no reasonable assumptions of confidentiality in business unless you specifically state that they are confidential or are provided as part of a confidentiality agreement.
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.