Contract Breach

[Jhonny p]

The facts are:

I work as agency staff under a limited company with Agency 1. I work for them until my contract ends which is the same point that agency 1 loses their Catalist framework agreement with the client.

I start applying to further agencies and find agency 2 which has the same role/job with the same client I was working for with agency 1 and I restart working for the client with a new contract again under the limited company.

Agency 1 writes to me as the supplier demanding a payment for breaching my contract which stated that I cannot work for the client for 6 months after the end date.

What options do I have available to contest this?

[XLMonkey]

As with all these things, it kind of depends on the exact wording of your contract.

But my first penn'orth is.. I think that you can give agency 1 the bird. I suggest you write a nice letter back to them along the lines of

1. If you are able to offer me an extension with the client, then I'll happily take it.
2. If you want to sue me for breach of contract, then you will have to prove in a court that you have lost revenue as a result of me moving to Agent 2. You only have a right to compensation for lost revenue.
3. Since you've lost your place on the Catalist framework, you haven't lost any revenue (you couldn't supply the service to the client any more)
4. Ergo, you can sue me, but you won't get a penny, so please stop wasting everyone's time.

My second penn'orth is that you should get a lawyer to review the actual wording of your contract before writing the letter, as it does depend on how the restraint clause is worded.

[northernladuk]

Until lawers get involved or it goes to court a contract is just writing on a piece of paper. There may be a bit of bad feeling and unlikely they will deal with you for a short period of time but it probably won't come to anything more than a war of words.

XL's advice is good but I bet you could just tell them you don't want to hear from them again unless it's their lawyer and just leave it at that.

If they are a small worthless agency you could of course just tell them to Foxtrot Oscar and block their number

[Zippy]

It seems that agency 1 are no longer suppliers to the end client? The wording in contracts usually states that you cannot work for the agency's client for a period of time. If the end client is no longer a client of agency 1 then tell the agent to take a hike.