Confidentiality and Proprietary Information Covenants

Confidentiality and Proprietary protection agreements exist in almost every company. These covenants serve to protect the lawfully obtained trade secrets that have been created over time. These agreements are enforced under state contract law and the respective trade secret statutes of such states.

Theses restrictive covenants are often used to prevent competition, even in the absence of controlling non-compete agreements. This is called "bootstrapping" and it is clearly designed to compensate for damage
the ex-employee has caused.