As I have counseled many clients, a non-compete provision is different than most other contractual terms, because simply having mutual consent and consideration will not automatically render it enforceable for reasons of public policy. Thus, even in states like Massachusetts that are known to enforce non-competes, such restrictions will be deemed invalid unless they are reasonable in time and scope and also are necessary to protect against unfair competition – which occurs when the employee uses the company’s confidential information, trade secrets or goodwill to compete against it. As oxymoronic as it may sound, a non-compete that merely prevents “ordinary competition” will be deemed unreasonable and unenforceable.

While some businesses try to make an end-run around this law by requiring an employee to forfeit some benefit or pay liquidated damages if he/she competes against his/her company, any such requirement will be viewed through the same public policy lens used to scrutinize a formal non-compete provision. Indeed, as the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts noted long ago in Cheney v. Automatic Sprinkler Corp.:

If forfeiture for competition provisions were enforced without regard to the reasonableness of their terms while covenants not to compete were subjected to such a

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