Singapore courts start by presuming your non-compete is void — the 6 fixes that made ours hold up

William

Head of Talent Operations, APAC · August 18, 2026

Our old clause was two years, all of Southeast Asia, and any business “competing or likely to compete” with ours. It had been in every engineering offer for four years. When we finally had it reviewed, the assessment took about ninety seconds and the verdict was blunt: this would almost certainly protect nothing at all.

Step 1 — Name the legitimate proprietary interest first

Most non-competes are drafted backwards. Someone starts with the restriction they want and works outward. The order that survives review is the opposite: identify what you are actually protecting, then design the narrowest restriction that protects it.

The recognised categories are narrower than employers expect. Trade secrets and genuinely confidential information qualify. Trade connections — established customer relationships the employee was placed in a position to influence — qualify. Maintaining a stable, trained workforce has also been recognised.

What does not qualify is the general skill and experience the engineer acquired while working for you. This is the hardest point for technical employers to accept, because the investment feels real: you paid for the training, the context, the years of domain knowledge. None of that converts into a proprietary interest. Wanting to keep a capable engineer away from a competitor is a commercial preference, not a protectable interest.

The practical action: write the interest in one sentence before drafting anything. If you cannot complete “this clause protects our…” without describing general competition, do not include a non-compete for that role.

Step 2 — Reach for the narrowest instrument that works

A non-compete is the most aggressive tool available and therefore the hardest to enforce. For most engineering roles, one of the lighter instruments protects the same interest with a far better chance of surviving.

Confidentiality obligations protect trade secrets and confidential information directly, and they do not restrain the person from working. They are also not subject to the same presumption, which makes them the first thing to strengthen. Intellectual property assignment secures ownership of work product. Non-solicitation of clients protects trade connections precisely. Non-solicitation of employees addresses the stable-workforce interest.

Only after those four have been properly drafted does a non-compete earn its place — and usually only for a small number of roles. In our own rewrite, strengthening confidentiality and adding a clean client non-solicit covered nearly everything the old blanket clause was notionally trying to achieve.

Step 3 — Scope duration, geography and activity separately

Reasonableness is assessed across three dimensions, and each must be independently defensible. A clause that is modest on one and extravagant on another does not average out.

Duration should be tied to how long the protected information stays valuable. For a fast-moving product, confidential technical detail may be commercially stale within months. Asking for two years while conceding that your roadmap changes every quarter is an argument against yourself.

Geography should reflect where you actually operate and where the employee actually had influence. “Southeast Asia” is a red flag unless you genuinely trade across it and the engineer’s role genuinely spanned it.

Activity is the dimension most often left vague and the one where precision pays best. “Any competing business” is close to meaningless in a market where most technology companies compete with most others somewhere. Define the specific line of business, or better, the specific role type.

Step 4 — Tier the clause by role instead of templating

The single most damaging habit is applying one restraint across the whole engineering organisation. It fails on both hurdles at once: junior engineers have no trade connections and rarely hold trade secrets, so there is no interest to protect; and applying an identical restriction regardless of exposure signals that the clause was never calibrated to any interest at all.

Three tiers cover most organisations. The majority of engineers get confidentiality and IP assignment, and no non-compete. A middle group with client-facing or architectural exposure adds non-solicitation. A small senior group with genuine access to strategy or core proprietary technology may justify a short, tightly scoped non-compete.

This tiering is also where the direction of policy travel points. MOM has signalled that guidelines on restrictive clauses are under development with its tripartite partners, with particular attention to lower-wage workers and roles where a restraint bears little connection to any genuine business interest. As of March 2026 those discussions were continuing and no guidelines had been issued. Drafting to the common-law tests now is the most reliable way to be ready for whatever is published.

Step 5 — Get the timing and consideration right

When the clause is signed matters. A restraint presented with the initial offer, before employment starts, sits on solid ground: the employment itself is the consideration.

A restraint introduced mid-employment, in a revised handbook or a contract refresh, is more fragile. If nothing is given in exchange, the arrangement invites an argument about what supported it. Where you need to add or tighten a restraint for existing staff, attach it to something the employee actually receives — a promotion, a salary revision, an equity grant — and record the linkage in writing.

The practical action: when tightening restraints across an existing team, run it alongside the annual compensation cycle rather than as a standalone document circulated for signature. The paperwork is identical; the position is materially stronger.

Step 6 — Plan enforcement, including garden leave

A clause you would never enforce has a cost even if it is never tested. It deters candidates, it complicates offers, and it sets a tone. Decide in advance, for each tier, whether you would realistically act.

Garden leave is worth considering as an alternative or a complement. Paying notice while keeping the employee away from current information achieves much of what a short non-compete aims at, and it does so while the person is still paid — which removes the main objection to a restraint, that it prevents someone earning a living. Courts weigh a paid restriction differently from an unpaid one.

Whatever you choose, apply it consistently. Enforcing against one departing engineer while waving through three others undermines the argument that the interest was worth protecting in the first place. Colleagues at HireDeveloper.ae make a parallel point about contractor arrangements in the UAE: what you do in practice matters more than what the contract says. The same logic applies in Japan, where post-employment restraints are similarly assessed on reasonableness and compensation rather than accepted at face value.

The three mistakes that cost the most

Assuming breadth equals protection. It is the opposite. Courts may sever a cleanly excisable part of a clause, but they will not redraft a restraint into something reasonable on your behalf. A two-year regional ban may deliver nothing where a six-month, activity-specific clause would have been enforced.

Protecting skill rather than information. If the honest reason for the clause is that the engineer became very good while working for you, there is no protectable interest. Invest in retention instead — it is the only mechanism that actually addresses that concern.

Never revisiting the template. Ours ran for four years untouched. Put a calendar reminder on employment terms the same way you would on any other document with legal consequence, and re-read it against your actual business rather than the business you had when it was written.

If you are building out a Singapore engineering function from scratch, our guides on building a fintech application in Singapore cover how teams at that stage are usually structured.

Frequently asked questions

Are non-compete clauses enforceable in Singapore?

They can be, but the starting position is against them. Singapore has no statute governing post-employment restraints; they are treated at common law as restraints of trade, which the courts presume to be void and contrary to public policy. To displace that presumption an employer must show two things: that the clause protects a legitimate proprietary interest, and that it is reasonable both between the parties and in the interests of the public. A clause that merely prevents competition, without an identifiable interest behind it, fails the first hurdle regardless of how carefully it is drafted.

What counts as a legitimate proprietary interest?

The categories recognised at common law are narrower than most employers assume. Trade secrets and genuinely confidential information qualify. Trade connections — established customer or client relationships the employee was placed in a position to influence — qualify. Maintaining a stable, trained workforce has also been recognised. What does not qualify is the general skill and experience an engineer acquires while working for you, however expensive that experience was to build. Wanting to avoid a competitor gaining a capable engineer is not a proprietary interest, and a clause resting on that alone will not survive.

Has Singapore issued tripartite guidelines on restrictive clauses?

Not as of the most recent public position. MOM has signalled that guidelines on restrictive clauses are being developed with its tripartite partners, with particular attention to lower-wage workers and roles where a restraint has little connection to any genuine business interest. As of March 2026 MOM remained in discussion with those partners on how and when such clauses should be used, and indicated that any guidance would be built on principles the courts have already articulated. Until guidelines are published, the common-law tests remain the operative framework — so drafting to them is drafting to whatever comes next.

Will a court rewrite an overly broad non-compete to make it enforceable?

Do not count on it. Courts may in limited circumstances sever an offending part of a clause where the language allows it to be cleanly excised and the remainder still stands on its own, but they will not rewrite a restraint into something reasonable on the employer’s behalf. The practical consequence is that over-drafting is not a free option. A clause that asks for two years across all of Southeast Asia may end up delivering nothing at all, whereas a six-month clause tied to a defined activity and a named set of clients would have been enforced.

In summary

Singapore does not regulate post-employment restraints by statute; it regulates them by presumption. The clause starts void, and everything you draft is an attempt to earn its way out of that. Once you internalise the order — interest first, instrument second, scope third — the drafting becomes straightforward.

If you take only two steps from this list, take the first and the fourth. Naming the protected interest in a single sentence eliminates most bad clauses before they are written. And tiering by actual exposure means the small number of restraints you do impose are the ones that would survive scrutiny — which is the only version worth having.