After graduating with a Bachelor of Business (Finance) from the National University of Singapore, Jian Xiang worked briefly as a Risk Analyst with Deutsche Bank AG before returning to complete his Bachelor of Laws (LL.B) with the same university. His interests include Risk Management and Portfolio Diversification Strategies, as well as Corporate and Contract Law.
Forfeiture-For-Competition Clauses: Unfair Restraints or Instrumental Incentives?
The competing freedoms of trade and contract have consistently proved difficult to balance within the employment context. While the restraint of trade doctrine is the legal forum by which the court attempts to balance such tensions, the development of modern corporations coupled with the advent of large-scale corporate fraud (as in the infamous Enron case) have led to new and increasingly complex human resource management practices, many of which have not yet been satisfactorily dealt with by the court.
Of special concern and currency are deferred compensation and forfeiture clauses, which have received contradictory treatment from the various common law jurisdictions. This proposal seeks a detailed examination of the mechanism of such clauses and offers a principled view on how they should be approached based on the rationales behind the restraint doctrine, especially in light of recent local case law developments. Lastly, the practicability and consistency of the solutions proposed by other jurisdictions (such as the American Employee Choice Doctrine) or offered by other legal doctrines (such as estoppel) will be considered as well.
