Non-competition agreement

During the course of their employment relationship, employees become aware of many matters that the employer has a legitimate interest in protecting, such as production secrets, technical or commercial information, and the employer's customer base. This information must be protected in order for the employer to compete with its competitors and survive in the market. This protection is provided during the continuation of the employment relationship, without the need for a separate agreement, due to the duty of loyalty. However, the protection of this information after the termination of the employment relationship is possible through a non-competition agreement, which is often preferred in practice, and which is the subject of our study. For the validity of the non-competition agreement, which limits the employee's freedom to work and contract, the legislator has sought the existence of certain conditions. In this context, in our study, firstly, competition and non-competition are discussed as concepts, and then the situations that cause competition within the scope of the Turkish Code of Obligations are analysed together with judicial decisions. Subsequently, the conditions for the existence of a valid non-competition agreement and its limitations are evaluated by considering the judge's intervention in the agreement, and the breach of the non-competition agreement and its consequences, and the court in which the lawsuit will be filed in case of breach are discussed. Finally, the termination of the non-competition agreement is analysed.