Non-Competition Law in France and the EU

However, in the international arena, U.S. employers should refrain from seeking to blindly impose the “American way” of drafting and implementing restrictive covenants in an attempt to harmonize their employees' working conditions all over the world. Indeed, there is simply no such a thing as a standard restrictive covenant that could be implemented whatever the location of the workplace in the world. More generally, U.S. companies that choose to “go global” should never forget that employment laws in the international arena significantly differ according to the legal, social, political and economic background in each country. While employment relationships in the U.S. are governed by private arrangements that are voluntarily entered into between employers and employees, they generally consist, in other industrialized countries, of a comprehensive and paternalistic set of legal rules the main purpose of which are to protect employees in their subordinate relations vis-'-vis their employers. Consequently, most employment laws in industrialized countries and in particular in Western Europe are more employee-friendly than U.S. employment law (including California law).