Texas Non Solicitation Agreements: Non-Solicitation Agreements Overview
Provisions prohibiting the solicitation of customers are treated as covenants not to compete (and thus must meet the requirements applicable to all noncompete agreements). Unlike disclosing the employer's confidential information (which is legally actionable, even without an express agreement by the employee that he will not do so), soliciting the employer's customers constitutes fair competition (unless done via a theft of the employer's trade secrets, a breach of fiduciary duty, etc.), and thus is not actionable unless prohibited by a valid covenant not to compete. Because the scope of a covenant must be reasonable, a provision prohibiting a salesperson from soliciting any of his former employer's customers might be unreasonable (and might have to be reformed), but a provision restricting the employee from soliciting customers with whom he personally dealt would be relatively more enforceable.
