Hacker News Reader

In Australia, at least, the courts have and will continue to strike down such abusive behaviour by companies.

Non compete agreements, for example, are completely unenforceable. I pointed this out to a former employer who presented me with one. The CEO who was a Business/Law graduate acknowledged the fact and withdrew the requirement to sign.

View on HN

Having spoken recently to a Barrister in Australia who has represented in such cases - he has yet to see a judge support these contracts or non-competes. The basis theory is you can stop someone earning a living and restrict their liberty to provide for family/self.

Notice in general is a bit of a farce, my guess is well over >95% of cases companies don’t care if you don’t work your notice. In that they won’t go after you legally if you just plain quit, similar situations with NDAs. Unless you know extremely commercially sensitive information then most companies are just happy to see someone go when they choose to move on. Otherwise they’ll put you on gardening leave to see out your notice.

Seen someone CTOish level with 3 or maybe 6 months contract get terminated. Guess what happens: garden leave. (Australia).

It doesn’t even need to be C level executives, anyone with information seen to be commercially sensitive gets put on gardening leave if something big is going down.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com