When is a contract a contract?

[Lostmymarblerun]

My DH has been working for an investor for just under 2years as an MD on a permanent basis. He was never issued a contract by the investor, however DH created employment contracts for all his employees and when doing this created his own contract. The difference between his employee contracts and his is simply salary and notice period. He now wishes to leave and the contract he created which the investor has never seen BTW says he needs to give 6 months notice. He would like to go earlier and wants to understand his legal position. Is the contract he issued himself even binding? Can he leave earlier and forfeit the pay, would be happy to do so.

Fear this may get nasty so any advice greatly appreciated, will post in legal too.

If he issued himself a contract, and the investor has never seen it, can he issue himself a new one with conditions he favours, and sign it and then he can product it if it gets nasty?

I presume the contract is actually between your husband and the company where he is MD.

His notice period is the one laid down in the contract he has drawn up. If he leaves early not only will he forfeit the pay, the company can sue him for damages due to his breach of contract.

It is binding in that he issued the contract on behalf of the company, and accepted it as an employee of the company. (I imagine all employees had to sign the contract?)

However, if he is an MD of an investor owned business there is likely to be more than an employment contract relationship here. It's more usual to have a service contract in place which ties the individual into the business. It's likely he'll need specialist legal advice to extricate himself from that.