Non-solicitation clause: The French Supreme Court rules that a non-solicitation clause is only lawful if it is proportionate to the legitimate interests to be protected (Somado, Eurodis / Buropa)

*This article is an automatic translation of the original article, provided here for your convenience. Read the original article. Non-solicitation clauses are not non-competition clauses. For an employer, it is not a matter of prohibiting his employee from engaging in a competing activity at the end of his contract, but, for a company, of prohibiting a commercial partner from soliciting (canvassing or hiring) its employees, during the course of the relationship or once it has ended. The debtor is not the same, the purpose of the clause is not the same, and neither is the nature of the contract containing the clause. As the Commercial Chamber of the Court of Cassation ruled a few years ago, "the non-solicitation clause (...) does not constitute a non-competition clause, of which it is