Non-Competes in the Sale of a Texas Business

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If you’re buying a business in Texas and the seller agrees to a non-compete, will it hold up in court? The short answer is yes, but the non-compete should be reasonably limited to the purpose of protecting the goodwill that you are acquiring with the other assets of the business. It’s also a good idea to have the purchase agreement recite that the purchased assets include the goodwill of the business.

To understand why, let’s start with the two requirements in the Texas Covenants Not to Compete Act, affectionately known as TCNCA: (1) a non-compete must be “ancillary to an otherwise enforceable agreement” (whatever that means) and (2) a non-compete must be reasonably limited in time, geographic area, and scope of activity.

How do you make a non-compete “ancillary” to an otherwise enforceable agreement? As I explain in this short video, the most common way is to have a non-compete tied to a confidentiality agreement between an employer and an employee. This is usually sufficient to meet the “ancillary” requirement, as long as the agreement explicitly or implicitly promises to provide confidential information to the employee and the employer actually provides confidential information.

A sale of a business is different. In a typical sale, the buyer acquires the assets of the business, including goodwill. And in this information age, the goodwill is often the most valuable asset of the business.

Trouble is, you can’t just load goodwill on a truck like it’s office furniture or shop tools. Goodwill primarily consists of relationships with customers or clients, and in many cases the customer relationship is with an individual who works for the business, not so much the business itself.

A non-compete is ancillary to the sale of the goodwill because it is necessary to make the transfer effective. See, e.g., Chandler v. Mastercraft Dental Corp. of Texas Inc., 739 S.W.2d 460, 464-65 (Tex. App.–Fort Worth 1987, writ denied) (“the covenant was necessary to protect the business goodwill, the key asset”). Imagine if the seller, after selling the goodwill, could set up a new business the next day and start soliciting the sold business’s customers. Then the buyer would not really get the benefit of the transferred goodwill.

If the law refused to enforce a non-compete in this situation, it would hurt the buyer and the seller. No buyer is going to pay the full value of the goodwill without assurance that the seller cannot immediately start competing for the customers of the business. And then business owners would not be able to cash out the full value of their businesses.

So, if anything, enforcing a non-compete makes more economic sense in the sale of a business than in the employer-employee context. That explains why even California, which generally prohibits non-competes, has an exception for the sale of a business. See Cal. Bus. & Profs. Code § 16600-16602.5.

It also explains why Texas courts have said that “[a] noncompete signed by an owner selling a business is quite different than one signed by an employee.” Heritage Operating, L.P. v. Rhine Bros., LLC, 02-10-00474-CV, 2012 WL 2344864, at *5 (Tex. App.—Fort Worth June 21, 2012, no pet.) (mem. op.). Texas courts have been more inclined to enforce long, or even limitless, time periods barring competition after a sale of a business. Id. (citing cases). For example, in Oliver v. Rogers, 976 S.W.2d 792, 801 (Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 1998, pet. denied), the court held that the lack of a time limitation did not render a non-compete unreasonable when it was part of the sale of a business.

But let’s not get carried away. Since 1989, all Texas non-competes are governed by the TCNCA. In addition to the “ancillary” requirement, the statute requires a non-compete to contain “limitations as to time, geographical area, and scope of activity to be restrained that are reasonable and do not impose a greater restraint than is necessary to protect the goodwill or other business interest of the promisee.” Tex. Bus. & Com. Code § 15.50(a). To the extent that any Texas case—especially a pre-1989 case—suggests that these limitations are not required in the sale of business, it should be taken with a grain of salt.

The non-compete statute does give the buyer of a business one advantage that may not be immediately obvious. In an employment agreement, the burden of proving the reasonableness of the non-compete is usually on the employer. But in the sale of a business, the burden of proof will usually be on the seller to show that the non-compete is unreasonable. See Tex. Bus. & Com. Code § 15.51(b) (placing burden of proof depending on whether the “primary purpose” of the agreement is to obligate the promisor to render “personal services”).

But again, reasonableness is still required. And here’s the slightly counter-intuitive part: if you represent the buyer in the sale of a business, you don’t want to go overboard on drafting a super-broad non-compete. In fact, it will usually be in your client’s interest to tailor the non-compete as narrowly as possible to the legitimate purpose of protecting the goodwill of the business. Anything more is too much.

What does that mean specifically?

First, you should include a reasonable time period. The time period should be no longer than necessary to protect the goodwill. Will the previous owner’s relationships with customers really have significant value four or five years later? Consider whether a two or three year period would be enough.

Second, you should include a geographic area. This will depend on the type of business, but generally a reasonable geographic area will coincide with the area where the company is doing business with its existing customers.

Third, the scope of activity restrained should be limited. This is perhaps the most neglected limitation. Remember, the purpose is to protect the goodwill of the business, which means relationships with existing customers. If the non-compete would bar the seller from competing in any way, for any customers, a judge might consider it an unenforceable “industry-wide exclusion.” The case law prohibiting industry-wide exclusions focuses on the employer-employee context, but the same concept can be applied to the sale of a business.

Ok, the seller of a business might say, but why not draft the non-compete as broadly as possible, and then if there’s a dispute you negotiate down from there?

Good question. Texas non-compete law is quite “pro-reformation,” especially in comparison to some other states. If a non-compete is unreasonably broad, that’s not the end of the story. The statute requires the trial court to reform the agreement to the extent necessary to make it reasonable. So, all is not lost if the buyer’s lawyer drafts the non-compete too broadly.

But there is a cost to be paid for making the non-compete too broad. First, if things go wrong and the seller of the business starts competing for the business’s customers, the new business owner may need to go to court to get a temporary injunction enforcing the non-compete. As a litigator who handles temporary injunction hearings, I can tell you it will be easier to make a case for a temporary injunction if the non-compete is already reasonably limited.

Second, if the non-compete is written too broadly, it effectively means that the buyer will be unable to recover damages for the seller’s breach. See Tex. Bus. & Com. Code §15.51(c). That’s a big bargaining chip to give away by making the non-compete too broad.

So if you represent the buyer, consider making the non-compete as narrow as you can while still protecting the goodwill your client is buying.

That brings up one more tip: the agreement should actually provide for the sale of the goodwill. If the purchase agreement does not expressly identify the goodwill as part of the assets being sold, there is a risk that a judge could say that the non-compete was not ancillary to an otherwise enforceable agreement. See, e.g., Bandera Drilling Co. v. Sledge Drilling Corp., 293 S.W.3d 867, 872-75 (Tex. App.–Eastland 2009, no pet.).

You could argue the sale of the goodwill is implied when all the other assets of the business were sold. Cf. Mann Frankfort Stein & Lipp Advisors, Inc. v. Fielding, 289 S.W.3d 844 (Tex. 2009) (an agreement to provide confidential information can be implied in a non-compete). But why chance it? Unless there’s a good reason not to include the goodwill (let me know, transactional lawyers), the safer course is to include an express recitation that the goodwill is part of the assets being sold.

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Zach Wolfe (zach@zachwolfelaw.com) is a Texas trial lawyer who handles non-compete and trade secret litigation at his firm Zach Wolfe Law Firm (zachwolfelaw.com). Thomson Reuters has named him a Texas Super Lawyer® for Business Litigation every year since 2020.

These are his opinions, not the opinions of his firm or clients, so don’t cite part of this post against him in an actual case. Every case is different, so don’t rely on this post as legal advice for your case.

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Comments:

Great article! I was wondering how much would your cost be to evaluate a sale non-compete agreement?