Legal Question in Business Law in New York

Non-competition and Breach of Contract

I was involved in an informal relationship with a corp. for which I performed certain sales & customer service management. There was a document negotiated & signed by me for a specified period with non-solicitation and non-competition clauses, however the other party decided to hold off until an agreement was reached on another matter that was unrelated. While agreement was reached on the other issue, the other party had the intention to and did terminate the arrangement, owed payments on services rendered that were never paid in total. I am not interested in pursuing any implied contract, since I can do the services without them. I am now pursuing the book of business I created, and clients want to follow, but a couple are nervous about being sued (even though there are no contracts with the company at all). I too want to make sure that considering the breach on payments for services, I am no longer bound by the terms of a non-compete or non-solicitation clause. There is also a question that while certain intellectual property created by me or my team that was described as 'works for hire' in a separate acknowledgment form, whether that too is unenforceable due to the breach of contract for non-payment. Advice welcome!


Asked on 2/21/06, 11:24 pm

2 Answers from Attorneys
John Friedman Law Office of John K. Friedman

Re: Non-competition and Breach of Contract

The only way to answer your questions is to carefully review the documents, executed and not, as well as to fully de-brief you and any other members of your team with relevant facts to share. Then a strategy can be devised and implemented to reduce your changes of litigation and to secure your IP rights.

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Answered on 2/22/06, 8:18 am
Stephen Loeb Law Office of Stephen R. Loeb

Re: Non-competition and Breach of Contract

You are not going to be able to get a clear cut yes or no answer in this limited forum, it will be necessary to go over all the documents and events with the company in detail, if you would like a consultation please feel free to contact me.

Should you like to discuss this or any other legal matter, you can e-mail me for more information about low cost face-to-face, on-line, or a telephone consultation with a lawyer in our office.

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Answered on 2/22/06, 10:08 am


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