GUEST COMMENT: Legal considerations to be borne in mind during team moves

Moving as part of a team is often tempting - you get to maintain work relationships and to work with existing colleagues, but it's also legally complex. If you're moving en-masse, there are a few things you need to remember.

They include:

Your duty of loyalty to a current employer

While you are employed by your current employer - including periods of garden leave - you owe a duty of loyalty to them.

What this means depends to an extent on your seniority in the organisation, but it will always involve these obligations:

- Not to disclose or misuse confidential information.

- Not to compete with your employer - even in your spare time - while you remain employed

- To disclose misconduct by other employees

- In certain cases, to disclose approaches from competitors. However, it is okay to tell your colleagues you are leaving without telling your managers.

Restrictions during garden leave

During garden leave you will be bound by all the terms of your contract, and approaching fellow employees can be a breach of the terms of your contract.

To reduce the risk of breaching of this duty, consider passing names of likely candidates to a third party - either the new employer or a recruitment consultant - so that they can deal with the recruitment phase directly.

Restrictive covenants

Restrictive covenants can include "non poaching" clauses which continue in force after you have left.

If you join a new employer and legal action is taken against you for breaching these non-poaching clauses by trying to induce former colleagues to join you, the new employer could be exposed to liability for inducing breach of contract.

Equally, if you join the new employer without disclosing a non compete or non poaching clause in your contract, you will be at risk of dismissal.

An obligation to inform your employer of imminent team moves

In industries where team moves are an issue, it's not unusual for contracts to include clauses with the express obligation to tell employers if you know someone is thinking of organising a team move. Even if there is no express clause, an obligation to report can be implied some contracts, particularly for senior employees.

An obligation not to disclose your remuneration to others

There are now restrictions on the enforceability of such clauses, but generally speaking they remain enforceable unless the disclosure is in connection with establishing an equal pay or sex discrimination claim, and so passing on information to a competitor could be misconduct.

Beware

Most employers monitor communications and use of company IT - including downloading or copying information.

Emails and phone traffic (including texts) are going to be scrutinised carefully by an employer concerned about a team move. Bear in mind that forwarding information to your personal email account is likely to be regarded as misconduct.

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