Offer letter versus formal contract of employment

[il ritorno uno]

My employers have not been at all diligent in providing me with a contract of employment. I have worked for them for over three years and in this time they have attempted to get me to agree to two : the first I returned back to them with some changes that I never heard back from them on and then, 18 months later, an entirely new contract was sent to me which attempted to remove the bonus that was agreed in my offer letter. I rejected the second one and went back in writing saying that I would not accept any implied terms contained within it.

Am I right in thinking that because I did not sign these contracts that the details contained within them (non-compete clause for example) do not apply and that therefore my initial offer letter that I used as the basis to start work will prevail?

Thanks all.

[GeraldSmith]

il ritorno uno said:

My employers have not been at all diligent in providing me with a contract of employment. I have worked for them for over three years and in this time they have attempted to get me to agree to two : the first I returned back to them with some changes that I never heard back from them on and then, 18 months later, an entirely new contract was sent to me which attempted to remove the bonus that was agreed in my offer letter. I rejected the second one and went back in writing saying that I would not accept any implied terms contained within it.

Am I right in thinking that because I did not sign these contracts that the details contained within them (non-compete clause for example) do not apply and that therefore my initial offer letter that I used as the basis to start work will prevail?

Thanks all.

Well, an employment contract doesn't need to be written to exist, in fact every employee has a contract regardless of whether it is written or not. Terms within a contract can be explicit or implied, so for example if nothing written determines how the contract can be terminated then this is implied.

So in the absence of a signed contract the employer would be having to argue that the non-compete clause was implied.

To be honest you need specialist advice, I certainly wouldn't assume that such a clause doesn't apply if it was in contracts that were put to you. If you didn't specifically reject them on the basis of that clause they might be able to argue that the clause is implied.

Unless anyone crops up here who can really claim to know what they are talking about I'd not rely on advice given, there is enough doubt to need to check it out, similarly non compete clauses are in themselves a tricky area and well worth getting proper advice about.

[il ritorno uno]

Thanks Gerald. That's very helpful. I suspected that I need advice.