The Development of the Texas Non-Compete; A Tortured History

Although Texas offers tax incentives and a favorable business climate, high tech businesses may have, in the past, understandably been reluctant to relocate to Texas because of the prior anemic protection granted to businesses in the arena of non-competes. These businesses, one assumes, have no interest in training their best and brightest today, only to have them become competitors tomorrow. The development of the non-compete covenant body of law in Texas, especially within the past five years, has addressed many concerns that businesses could have with the enforcement of non-competes. The dual prongs of Sheshunoff Management Services v. Johnson3 and Marsh USA v. Cook,4 addressed fully in this article, have provided some stability to the important business and legal issue of non-compete enforcement in the state of Texas.