Cease and desist letter enforcing employment contract (restrictive covenants)

What’s a cease and desist letter enforcing an employment contract (restrictive covenants) and when should you use it?

Restrictive covenants may be written into employment contracts to agree what an employee can or cannot do, either during the term of their employment and/or for a certain amount of time afterwards.

Use this letter when a former employee has acted in a manner that breaches the enduring contractual commitments they have to your business even though they’ve left your employ.

These enduring contractual restrictions are called ‘restrictive covenants’ and they can cover a variety of problematic activities in which your former employee could be engaging – from trying to/succeeding in:

• enticing away your staff
• enticing away your customers or key trading partners
• setting up in competition to you (having essentially copied your blueprint)
• taking on a role with one of your competitors
• representing themselves as still connected with your business after they have left

This is an area that’s often stressful for both you and the ex-employee who has breached their contractual obligations to you.

This letter, the threat of action and the evidence suggesting that the ex-employee is in breach of their legal obligations should hopefully be sufficient to bring their unlawful actions to an end.

What else might you need?

For more background on restrictive covenants, the different types of clauses and what protection they can offer you, see our guide to restrictive covenants and employees.