Restrictive Covenant

[Polly12345]

Hi,

I wonder of anyone could give me a bit more clarity on this.

I was dismissed/made redundant within 2years of being with a company over 6months ago now. However they have put a 12 month restrictive covenant in my contract.
I have a couple questions around this.
A). If I was a manager of a group of employees and had no contact with said customers would this restrictive covenant even be valid should I go into a similar field going forward.
B), Would this be seen as fair grounds considering I had no relationships with the companies customers and no data to be able to contact the companies database.
C). Will anything over 6months ever be seen as fair and not stopping you from earning a living especially if you were dismissed/made redundant (I put both options as it was a dismissal with no notice or any performance management and worded to me that for reference to your next job please tell them it was redundancy- I was paid 3months pay on top of my final months pay so seemed fair for the time serves).
D). I have no data so I couldn't possibly compete or target said business's customer base- would this also help should anything come to light?

Any advise on this would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

[ULA]

Before I provide any assistance please can you post up your restrictive covenant clause. Thanks

[Polly12345]

Please see below:

For a period of 12 months following the termination of your employment, for whatever reason, you may not without the prior consent of the company engage in the following:

1)Non-Competition. You hereby covenant with the Company that you shall not become engaged or concerned in the business of xxxxxx or xxxxx (“Restricted Business”) in any way or set up a directly competing business where the goods, products or services are of a kind with which you were concerned or involved in the course of your employment during the last twelve months of your employment.

2)Non-solicitation and/or non-dealing with customers. You hereby covenant with the Company that you shall not deal, canvass, solicit,
approach or tender for, either directly or indirectly, or cause to be canvassed or approached any customer, client or prospective customer or client of the Company who or which is or was a client or customer of the Company and with whom you dealt during the last twelve months of your employment.

[GoodOldBoy]

I may well be wrong, but something in the back of my mind is saying the European Laws on freemovement of movement may play a part in this. Just a thought.

[ULA]

The clause specifically states following termination for whatever reason, so even redundancy would be covered as it is a termination.

I presume that even if you did not have direct contact with the customers you would be aware of, at the very least, the main customers of the company?

Are you going to a competitor or setting up in business in competition, where the goods, products or services are of a kind with which you were concerned or involved in the course of your employment during the last twelve months of your employment"?

You may have an argument that 12 months is excessive for this restrictive covenant, particularly if you had no direct access to customers in the course of your duties. I also do not see a geographic limitation either which, depending on the nature of your ex-employer's business, may be helpful to you.