Summary

In addition to the main duties (an employee’s duty to work and an employer’s duty to pay the employee for the work performed), the parties of an employment relationship must fulfil secondary contractual obligations. The most important ones among these are the restraint of competition and the confidentiality obligation of employees. According to the Estonian Employment Contract Act, an employee must fulfil these obligations only if the parties have agreed so in an employment contract.
The Employment Contract Act also provides parties with the possibility to conclude an agreement concerning the duty of an employee to fulfil the confidentiality obligation after termination of the employment contract. A prerequisite for concluding such an agreement is the duty of an employer to pay an employee compensation for fulfilling the obligation.
However, the Employment Contract Act does not specify which groups of employees may be subjected to these obligations, for what period such an agreement may be concluded, what is meant by confidential information, what kind of compensation an employee is entitled to or what is the liability of the parties in the case of a breach of the obligations undertaken with the agreement.
The draft Employment Contract Act provides more thorough regulation. The draft Act gives a sufficient basis for the implementation of the said obligations of employees. Nevertheless, there is a need for more detailed provisions on the restraint of competition and the confidentiality obligation of employees.