Location: Rep.of Ireland
Northern Ireland
Location: Rep.of Ireland
Northern Ireland
Home / Articles / Sharpening the Blue Pencil - Can A Court Rewrite A Non-Compete Restriction?

Sharpening the Blue Pencil - Can A Court Rewrite A Non-Compete Restriction?

Posted in : Supplementary Articles ROI on 29 August 2019
Karen Killalea
Maples Group
Issues covered:

In the recent UK Supreme Court case of Tillman v Egon Zehnder Ltd, the Court decided to amend the wording of a non-compete restriction. It deleted words which it regarded as both unenforceable and severable from the overall restriction. The decision is interesting because it looks in detail at the so-called 'blue pencil' test.

The key points from the judgment are:

  • The doctrine of severability permits a court to sever or delete words from a post termination restriction but it must exercise caution in doing so;
  • The unenforceable provision should be capable of being removed without the necessity of adding to or modifying the wording of what remains (the 'blue pencil' test);
  • The deletion of

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This article is correct at 29/08/2019
Disclaimer:

The information in this article is provided as part of Legal-Island's Employment Law Hub. We regret we are not able to respond to requests for specific legal or HR queries and recommend that professional advice is obtained before relying on information supplied anywhere within this article.

Karen Killalea
Maples Group

The main content of this article was provided by Karen Killalea. Email +353 1 619 2037

View all articles by Karen Killalea