An employer demanded that an employee be prevented from competing with it after the employee contacted customers after his employment ended, using a customer list.
The Labor Court rejected the claim and held that the list of the company's clients is not a “trade secret” and the employee’s freedom of occupation cannot be infringed. In order to give effect to a non-competition clause limiting the employee's freedom of occupation after his employment is terminated, it is not enough to establish a general stipulation limiting the employee’s freedom of occupation in the employment agreement, but the employer must show that there is a "legitimate interest" and that the non-competition condition meets the test of reasonableness, inter alia, with reference to the duration of the restriction, its scope and the geographical area It will apply. In order to prove that a customer list is a "trade secret", which is a legitimate defensible interest, it must be shown that that list has an "added value" beyond a collection of customer names and a special effort must be made to compile it. Here, the list of clients was not a "trade secret" and the employee's employment agreement included a non-competition clause that is not limited in time, in a geographic area, or to the company's customers in particular. This wide stipulation harms the employee's freedom of occupation beyond reasonableness and prevents the employee from engaging in the field of its training and expertise and therefore cannot be enforced.