Leaving my job & asked to sign confidentiality agreement

[AlexC1981]

Hi All,

I handed in my notice at work recently and I am working through my notice period at the moment. HR have asked me to sign the document below (edited to remove names etc). This seems very odd to me as I have never had to sign anything like this before when leaving a company.

Am I dropping myself into something by signing it?





It is possible that the company I am going to could become a client of the old company, though this seems unlikely at the moment.

And here is the clause in the contract that the letter refers to:




Thanks for any advice received.

[AlexC1981]

Thanks for all the replies. If there is no harm in signing it I would rather just sign it, rather than it possibly cause issues with my final pay or reference. I am leaving the company on good terms.

The situation is that I work for a subcontractor as an estimator and I am going to work for a contractor as a QS. Should my old company quote for work to the new company and it and it falls to me to deal with it, how can I not use knowledge I have gained working there?

"Forthwith not misuse any information or data I have been privy to"

What does misuse mean in this context?

"disclose the names of any clients and all or prospective clients with whom I have had material dealings with post the termination of my employment"

Potentially every company I work at for the rest of my life then!

And what does "Embody these undertakings in an order of the high court" mean? Am I putting myself under some sort of obligation?

[AlexC1981]

In my resignation letter I said "In accordance with my contract of employment I am happy to continue to work until Friday...etc."

The bottom two pictures are extracts from my original contract to show what the clause is they refer to in the letter.

[AlexC1981]

I'll email HR a few questions tomorrow. Obviously the part about returning stuff is fine, but I need to understand what "misuse" means in this context and what information they are talking about and how I could possibly misuse it. I need to understand what they actually want from me regarding prospective clients and also what the high court statement means as I haven't a clue.

Thanks all.