Is my non-compete valid, if leaving my company would make the company non-viable?
<p>Based in the UK, I am the only programmer in a small tech company which produces financial software. I have a 3-year non-compete, geographical limits unspecified, where I "endeavour not to compete with [company] for a period of 3 years". </p>

<p>The company is making enough money to pay me and one user of the software a competitive wage, but the user needs significant, daily, even hourly, support from me, to use the software effectively, and only I know the code. I am pretty sure that if I left the company it would cease to be a viable entity. </p>

<p>Can the other shareholders, who own the majority of shares (I own 31%), still enforce the non compete if I leave and the company goes dormant? It can't really go outright bust because it doesn't really have liabilities. </p>

<p>EDIT: There is no agreement to pay me anything if I were to stop working for the company. That is, there is no payment for the non compete. </p>

<p>If the company is not actively doing <em>anything</em>, then nothing you do is in competition with it.</p>

<p>The wages it owes to you would presumably be liabilities, so it probably could "go bust."</p>

<p>If the company fails to pay you as agreed for an agreed time period, that could function as a breach of the contract that would prevent it from enforcing the non-compete, putting aside the question of whether the non-compete is viable in general.</p>

<p>Also, the specific contract language would be relevant as conduct that constitutes competition is often defined in different ways in different contracts.</p>

non-compete