[madaxe_again]

No. My response will be one of two things:

1) Shut the company down, lay off 50 employees, leave 100 clients without revenue, damage the UK economy to the tune of £300M/yr.

2) Go public, go to jail, and (1) will then happen anyway.

So frankly throwing the towel in looks like the only sane course of action, unless you have a magic wand to affect government policy.

[antihero]

I wonder if you can set up the company as an international entity or something like this, and have yourself as employee?

[tankenmate]

Or better still, set up a foreign company, the sole shareholder of which is a trust of which you are a non executive beneficiary. Then make yourself a contractor to said company with an explicit contractual requirement that you must affirm that you have not been compelled (legally or otherwise) to author anything (code or otherwise) that may materially effect said company.

The govt will still probably try to find a way around it but at least you've made it very difficult for them.

[dogma1138]

The govt wouldn't give a squat about what contractual agreements you have made they can still compel you. By your logic I can make the same deal with an explicit contractual requirement that I cannot be detained by the police and then go on a murder spree and say sorry I got a contract that says you can't arrest me...

[CommanderData]

It would make a difference. Circumventing this law will be possible even if it means setting up company in a different country.

>The govt wouldn't give a squat about what contractual agreements

Setting yourself up in that manner would mean more challenges and making it difficult for the UK govt to win in court.

[dogma1138]

As long as any entity related to the company has a UK address they'll get pinched the only way to "circumvent" the law is not to have any business in the UK.

>Setting yourself up in that manner would mean if it needed to be taken to court, it would be difficult for the UK govt to win.

I don't think you understand how the legal system in the UK works, or anywhere else for that matter. You can't have contractual agreements that go against the law as it would constitute an illegal contract.

If you have a clause in the contract that requires you to either break the law outright or not to comply with it it will not be enforceable and will be considered void.

[tankenmate]

Not necessarily, what would happen in this case is that once you are compelled your contract to work on the code is terminated. Nothing illegal about such a contract.

[mryan]

> Setting yourself up in that manner would mean more challenges and making it difficult for the UK govt to win in court.

But would it, really? This fails the same logical test as the warrant canary - it sounds comforting, but is absolutely useless in the real world.

You still have the same choices - you can follow the request, or ignore it. You can tell the world, or keep it secret.

In every scenario I can think of, this idea of "affirming you have not been compelled" provides absolutely no protection.

Are you able to provide an example that demonstrates how this off-shore/contractor setup would protect you from the UK equivalent of a NSL with a non-disclosure clause?