Get on the right track for analyzing your Oklahoma non-compete agreement

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Have you wondered if there is an easier path to begin the analysis of an Oklahoma non-compete agreement?  If so, you are in luck.

I have written extensively about Oklahoma non-compete agreements, non-solicitation agreements, non-disclosure agreements and related competition documents. Recently, it ocurred to me that there is a better to explain how Oklahoma competition law fits together.

Oklahoma public policy is decisively against non-compete agreements . . . that limit employees.  This directly in contrast to a couple of other areas where Oklahoma public policy expressly allows non-compete agreements.  Those areas are when partners make an agreement about how to handle the break-up of a partnership and if the goodwill of a business is sold.

Determining whether you fit into to the first or second scenario is about 99% of the battle in determining whether the non-compete restriction will be enforceable.  To best understand Oklahoma competition law, think of an analysis moving across two tracks:

 

  1.  Were you an employee when you signed the restrictive agreement?
  2. Were you an owner of a business when you signed the written agreement?

The answer to these questions determines your track.  If you are on tract 1, consider this post for some additional guidance.  If you are on track 2, consider this post for additional guidance.

 

Posted by Shawn Roberts

On this blog, I write about and try to answer practical Oklahoma legal questions. My focus and most experience is in estate planning and business issues including Oklahoma non-compete law. I make a living as an attorney in the law firm I founded, Shawn J. Roberts, P.C. in Oklahoma City. I live in Edmond with my wife Amy and my two children, Sam (19) and David (11). We live precisely in the path of where the "wind comes sweeping down the plains."