Unknown Future Customers Can’t Be Included In Non-Competes

An employer’s restriction preventing departing workers from soliciting potential future clients of the company is overbroad, a federal court in Arkansas found. It is reasonable for a company to protect relationships in which the departed employees were involved, the court said, but not unknown and unspecified future relationships. Barnes & Thornburg attorney Bill Nolan notes that in some states a court may revise such an employment agreement to make it “reasonable,” but with Arkansas not being a “court-will-modify” state, the entire agreement was thrown out. If a non-compete “misses by an inch, it misses by a mile,” the court said.