Hello - need some urgent help !
Is it legal to join a competitor in the analytics consulting domain in the same project or a different project?
Note - I did sign a joining document of an existing company which covers a Non Solicitation clause.
It's legal
The worst (and by that I mean ABSOLUTELY worst case scenario in which the OG company would have to spend a lot of time and money) is they'll recover some damages from you if they're able to prove you somehow caused them some monetary loss
As @TallTales69 put it, non competes and even non solicitations are, as a matter of fact, not enforceable in India I think one of the only cases of a non compete being enforced in India was when Party A bought a business from Party B (let's say a pizza making business) and successfully won a suit against Party B from again starting a pizza making business
~I'm a lawyer
This is really helpful! Can you please explain the last para again if it's fine ? I think I lost it there.
Say you have a pizza business called IdealTwitter's Pizza and you've been making and selling pizza in Delhi, Haryana and UP for 20 years. I buy the business from you After completing the purchase, you open a new pizza business in UP. I sued you for doing so.
In previous situation based on the above facts the court decreed in my favour.
This was very unlikely and required a lot of proving, smart lawyers and time and money from me, though
Non solicitation means when you go and join somewhere else you won't entice folks and hire from your previous employer.
Non compete means you can't join competition. This is not enforceable per Indian law.
Got it which means I can join a competitor even in the same account. Is my understanding correct?
Don't wanna scare you:
Don't just look at the letter you signed, but also look what the manager/team in competition company is looking from your OG company in terms of data, you'll understand this at the time of interview. You'll think they are looking for some talent in you at the time of interview but nah, few months down the lane depending on the market you'll know why they hired you, some teams in competition company look out for people only in OG company for data.
Check if you fall into such teams.
I knew few people who were tortured for joining competition company and very few who were successful after joining the competition company.
Rest is up to you. Letters are later, knowing why you are being hired is deadly important
Non compete and solicit are not legally enforceable in India, yes. But there have been landmark judgements where this was upheld and the employee had to pay damages, don’t remember the exact case name, but you can find on Google.
My tldr would be - if your current company is smallish and is looking to grow , and doesn’t have peak xv type top tier investors who can fuck you from an ecosystem pov, go for it. This is because they don’t have the mental bandwidth to make an example out of you.
If not, trust me, it’s not worth the hassle.
The folks saying that a lot of money is required for screwing, it’s not. It’d take roughly 50k for a half decent NLU stoner to take out a stay order and then you’ll be crushed by the Judicial system.
This might be unpopular opinion, but, switching directly to a competitor is shitty IMO.
How folks generally deal with it is have a garden leaf period or another short stint before making the switch, in that case you’re pretty much bulletproof
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