Restraint of trade & disclosure of work

[Christel]

Hi there, I would like some general advice... I'm an independent contractor to an accounting firm. I was previously employed by them for 11 years and has been an IC now for 2 years. I do exactly the same work as what I have been doing whilst in their employ.

In our contract, it has a Restraint of Trade... which I feel is not legal as I can only do this one job and if I'm to cancel my contract with them, the Restraint will run for another 3 years...
I'm only performing bookkeeping duties and payroll function, so if you really look at the "threat" I could be to their business, its not really big, as most clients prefer to have all their work done by one company and not have different service providers for bookkeeping and payroll and financials. Is there an alternative that we could agree upon, than restricting me for 3 years ...?

Also, in our initial discussion, it was agreed that I could have private clients. Now they want me to disclose this info "as per good corporate governance practices". Can they ask this from me? They don't share with me who all their clients are, so why must I do this?

Thanks.

[Dave A]

For clarity -

Is the restraint limited to preventing you directly servicing their existing clients for a period of three years after termination of the relationship between you and the accounting firm?

If yes, confirm you are not prevented from servicing entities that are not their clients (which should be a bigger market than their client list ordinarily).

[Justloadit]

I think you need to do some research on google for RSA restraint of trade issues.

Here is one https://businesstech.co.za/news/busi...-need-to-know/