Covenants Not to Disclose in Alabama

The law may protect certain types of an employer's information for disclosure.  In addition to covenants in employment contracts, Alabama also has a trade secret statute and follows the general principles of common law agency, which limit the information that a departing employee may take or utilize.

Because of the perception among lawyers that employers may legitimately protect confidential and proprietary information. covenants that restrict disclosure of company information may be drafted in broad sweeping generalizations that are not realistically enforceable, but which give departing employees, as well as their future employers, pause to consider exactly what the words mean.

A covenant against disclosure of information might provide:

Employers may take extreme positions about the information that an employee holds that may not be used for the benefit of the employee once departed or otherwise disclosed.  For example, a salesman who sells a particular brand of golf clubs at wholesale to golf pro retail shops will have knowledge of which shops purchase from his Company, but that fact can also be easily determined by looking at the brands of clubs on display for retail sale.  On the other hand, the actual price at which the clubs are sold at wholesale (after factoring in the various promotions and discounts available) may not be so clearly evident.

Page Law Firm has years of experience advising employees and employers on covenants not to disclose information.