Employer Law Blog
May 6, 2015
Employer Alert: Check Your Non-Compete Agreements—- Are They Assignable?
Timm Schowalter
Recently, the United States District Court for the Western District of Missouri addressed whether non-compete agreements are automatically assignable in an asset purchase. The court found the agreements to be unenforceable on account of the employees who signed them had not contemporaneously assented to their assignment when their employer sold its assets to another company. Symphony Diagnostic Services No. 1, Inc. d/b/a MobileXUSA v. Greenbaum, No. 13-4196 (W.D. Mo. March 16, 2015). In MobileXUSA, the determinative fact was the agreements did not have an assignment clause allowing an employer to freely assign the agreements to a subsequent company.