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Originally Posted by Mokona  In general it is my impression that non-compete agreements aren't likely or able to be enforced in a court of law. It would also be bad PR if Wizards of the Coast had layoffs and kept its former employees unemployed due to non-compete clauses. I wouldn't worry about it. |
If they have non-compete agreements in place, I doubt they are valid under a layoff or similarly amicable separation of employment. In my experience, most non-compete clauses are in place to keep an employee from using an unfair advantage, or inappropriate business relationship, to jump ship from one company to an associate or partner company. Also, the only way that they have ever been valid is with contract employees, such as professional wrestlers, and in those cases the company pays them out the remainder of their contract and holds them to the end date of the contract.
So, with respect to those impacted by the recent
WotC layoff, I doubt that there is an enforcible NCA in place or, as you said, that
WotC would enforce it in such a negative fashion.
Odds are, working on assumption here, the folk who had to do the face-to-face on these layoffs probably hated doing it, felt badly, and did the best they could to take care of those folks that were separated from the company due to a fiscal decisions made beyond them.
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