Terminating an open-ended contract

[achillea]

I have a (rather vague) open-ended contract with a consultancy which I signed last July (as an associate). I have not worked with them this year and am starting a project which will keep me busy until early 2008. They do not wish associates to work with any of their clients (whether you have worked with those clients or not). They got a bit arsey over my next contract as its with one of their clients. That is all sorted out now but I don't want to be in a situation next year where by chance I sell some work to one of their clients and they intervene again. Although my Agreement with the consultancy has not been officially terminated I now seem to have been taken off all email distribution lists so not receiving any confidential information which would tell me who their clients are.

- Should I officially terminate the contract or would it be deemed to not be in effect as we are not currently working together? ie I just let it go quiet and never deal with them again (cowardly but most favoured choice as I don't really want to contact them).

Many thanks

[rmjames]

I am working on setting up a similar associate contract with a consultancy, would be good to have this answered...

[2uk]

I am working on setting up a similar associate contract with a consultancy, would be good to have this answered...

What do you guys get out of consultancies ? These tend to be very cheap.
Anything above 200 /day looks like a "good deal" these days. At least with Win stuff - what I do.

[achillea]

Competition clause

£200 per day - which consultancies are you using??! I agree its not my ideal but they are occasionally good for filling up the pipeline and a decent one will have an associate arrangement where you get say 70-75% of the chargeout rate plus commission if you are involved in selling the work.

The only bit of my open-ended contract I'm concerned about says something along the lines of "You must not deliver consultancy, services or training in any business-to-business capacity (whether you are working directly for, or as an associate or contractor to, any company that provides these services in competion to Consultancy X) during the time that you are engaged on an assignment providing services to a client of Consultancy X"

I understand that these kind of clauses are not enforceable after a period of 12 months but if its a client of theirs that I never worked on when would the 12 month clock start from? Ie on the last day I worked for them (Dec 06) or from now?

cheers