Damien,

take us to the employment side.

Sure, Rob.

So we're in a different world in the employment context.

And the first thing to note is, unlike restrictive covenants in the vendor context, there are stricter rules that apply in the employment relationship.

And that's really because there's an assumption that there's an inequality of bargaining power between an employer and an employee.

So, courts are much more willing to take a stricter look at restrictions that are entered into in the employment context, and they're only going to enforce a restriction that goes no further than is reasonably necessary to protect an employer's legitimate business interests.

So how can one mitigate against this? Well, it comes down really to having a clear employee communication strategy and effective retention measures in place from the outset.