Restrictive Covenant enforceable for different job role?

[moylesey]

I have just resigned from my current employer and have just started my 3 month Gardening leave as stipulated in my contract.

They have made it clear they plan to enforce the 12 month restrictive covenant that is contained within my contract. It states that i am not allowed to work for a competitor for 12 months after my date of termination.

We are planning to form a new company that will directly compete with the previous company, though not in the sector I was working in for 6 months prior to my resignation. Though I did work in that sector for the 6 months prior to that, but in the USA part of the company group.

However my job role will be completely different at the new company. My job role was sales for my duration of working at the company, but due to poor management and a lack of staff I have been undertaking more operational and project management responsibilities, in both sectors. The new job will be operations and project management in nature. The job will genuinely be different and not in any way sales related, and is not just an attempt to circumvent the non compete.

So I'm wondering if people feel the non compete is enforceable in that context.

Happy to provide the wordings as a PM if that's helpful.

Thanks

[Amethyst]

Re: Restrictive Covenant enforceable for different job role?

I think the wordings would be important here. Is there a 6 month clause for customers/clients as well as a 12 month employment clause?
You'd be taking your skills and knowledge of the industry your new firm will be engaged in, regardless of whether you are in the same role. So it would depend how wide ranging the sector your previous employer was - ie if financial services then it would be too general to say that you are not allowed to work for any financial services company but could be okay to say you cannot work in the specific area of financial services that you were employed in.