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I received a job offer earlier for Dubai, and one of the conditions was a 3 year non-competition clause which stipulated that if I left the company, for any reason, they would refuse to transfer my visa to any other financial institution in the UAE for a period of 3 years. As such, I would be unable to switch jobs and would be tied in to this institution.

The HR person at the bank claimed that this was standard. I wanted to see if anyone else had seen similar provisions, and if so, if there was any way to get around it. Given that I'm moving out there from Canada, I would hate to be at the mercy of my employer to this extent!

Thanks in advance.

I also considered a posting in a bank here when comparing offers and I didn't see any such clauses in the offer I received. It 'might' be standard for the institution but the 3 years is not by law. They're just trying to force some sort of loyalty on you.

1.
A restraint agreement is not binding under the labour law unless it is included in the official labour contract (the 2 part, single page English Arabic one).
As you have not yet joined the company and are not yet in the country it is most likely that they have only sent you an Offer of Employment and you have not been shown the official Labour Contract. This offer may be a standard document generated by thier HR department.
The official Labour Contract is in essence an abbridged version of your contractual negotiations with the employer. It details salary, leave, sponsor, hours of work, any allowances that you have negotiated, date and duration of the contract - it does not detail for instance company policies and procedures etc... as they fall outside of the Labour Departments juristriction.
An employer may however ask that this document be attached as an appendix to the official labour contract - but you have to agree to it and sign all the pages. If they are included as an appendix then they can be enforced through the Labour Department. I don't personally know of one single instance of this occuring!!!!

2.
HOWEVER, of course there is always one... if you were to sign a restraint as part of your contract and broke it, the bank (with all of the resources that banks normally have at thier disposal) may deceide to follow a civil suit against you. This of course would mean a court case (all reprsentation in Arabic), lawyers fees etc.. etc.. basically messy

3.
Here comes another catch. If you were to take the position and found a better one after 18 months, then under the change of sponsorship law you would probably not be able to move. As 1.) your current sponsor would have to agree to the transfer to the new sponsor and 2.) you can only transfer within your labour catagory/ designation.

4.
At the moment the worst they could probably do is enforce the 6 month labour ban on you if you did deceide to move. Although, as most people on the site will tell you the laws change rapidly (and at odd angles) on a regular basis - so what you may consider a restrictive practice may not even exist in 6 months time.

5.
You also don't mention what finacial institution it is. If it is a Government/ quasi-government of ministerial type of institution it is NOT subject to the Federal Labour Law - they basically have thier own rules!

dbxsoul,

Thank you so much for your informative post. The bank is a private institution and is not govt. owned. You are correct in your assertion that to date, I have only seen the offer of employment. Do you know if the labour contract is provided prior to moving to Dubai?

I spoke with the HR department again today, and they assured me that this was a standard clause in every offer letter they release. Like you mentioned, the HR guy said that labour laws are changing very rapidly, and in all likeliehood, this clause would be non-eonforceable in a few months. He could not recall a single instance where the bank had attempted to enforce this provision in the past. He also assured me that there were many loopholes, including leaving the UAE for a few months while a new visa is processed. Another loophole he mentioned was going to work for a govt. institution, since he said their laws are completely different.

I then spoke with a local lawyer who mentioned that this condition was extremely onerous, and would likely not be enforceable as it was unreasonable. He mentioned that as a Canadian, I would likely be treated differently than say a Pakistani or Indian, as the Canadian embassy has gotten involved in these situations in the past to protect their citizens. This didn't make a lot of sense to me, but I'm completely ignorant when it comes to these things!

I'm not sure how risky this whole thing is, but I'm not feeling any more confident than I was before!

no, chances are you won't get to see the original labour contact until you arrive - they will probably get labour approval and the visa issued, but finalise the labour contract on your arrival.

they could bring you into dubai on a visit visa - which would then be converted to an employement visa on your arrival. alternativly they would employ you directly on an employement visa (which you would enter the country on).

if you read through some of the other postings you will see that your second last paragraph definitly has relavence.