Edmonton Employment Law

There's a fairly common scenario in employment law:  An employee leaves his or her former employer, and either joins a competitor or starts up a competing business. The default position is that most employees are perfectly entitled to engage in competitive activities, including but not limited to soliciting customers of the former employer.  Understandably, a lot of employers take issue with this, and argue that there is some obligation on the employee to not  do so. These obligations can arise from a couple different places.  Firstly, employers often require employees to sign restrictive covenants, limiting their ability to compete and/or to solicit customers and/or other employees of the business.  These agreements can be difficult to enforce, but in certain circumstances, reasonable restrictions may be enforceable. Secondly, certain kinds  of employees owe "fiduciary" obligations to an employer, including an obligation not to compete 'unfairly'.  There ar