{"id":328,"date":"2026-03-06T12:46:47","date_gmt":"2026-03-06T16:46:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/delawarebusinesslaw\/?p=328"},"modified":"2026-03-06T13:29:06","modified_gmt":"2026-03-06T17:29:06","slug":"delaware-court-of-chancery-refuses-to-narrow-overbroad-restrictive-covenant-again-closely-scrutinizing-sale-of-business-agreements","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/delawarebusinesslaw\/2026\/03\/06\/delaware-court-of-chancery-refuses-to-narrow-overbroad-restrictive-covenant-again-closely-scrutinizing-sale-of-business-agreements\/","title":{"rendered":"Delaware Court of Chancery Refuses to Narrow Overbroad Restrictive Covenant, Again Closely Scrutinizing Sale-of-Business Agreements"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>By <a href=\"https:\/\/www.duanemorris.com\/attorneys\/shannonhamptonsutherland.html\">Shannon Hampton Sutherland<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.duanemorris.com\/attorneys\/lawrencehpockers.html\">Lawrence H. Pockers<\/a> and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.duanemorris.com\/attorneys\/brandonharper.html\">Brandon Harper<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Continuing its trend of striking down overbroad restrictive covenants in the sale-of-business context, the Delaware Court of Chancery on March 4, 2026, struck down a worldwide noncompetition provision that expanded far beyond the seller\u2019s regional footprint in <em>BluSky Restoration Contractors, LLC v. Robbins &amp; Popwell<\/em>. <em>BluSky<\/em>, like <em>Intertek Testing Services NA, Inc. v. Eastman<\/em> before it and <em>Kodiak Building Partners, LLC v. Adams<\/em> before that, is another example of the court closely scrutinizing restrictive covenants under the sale-of-business standard to determine whether they go beyond the legitimate business interests of the buyer in protecting the business sold. Consistent with its predecessors, <em>Kodiak<\/em> and <em>Intertek<\/em>, the court refused to \u201cblue pencil\u201d or otherwise reform the overbroad restrictive covenants in <em>BluSky<\/em>. Companies engaged in business transactions governed by Delaware law should be mindful of the scope being established by these cases when drafting restrictive covenant provisions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.duanemorris.com\/alerts\/delaware_court_chancery_refuses_narrow_overbroad_restrictive_covenant_again_closely_0326.html\">Read the full <em>Alert<\/em> on the Duane Morris LLP website<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Shannon Hampton Sutherland,\u00a0Lawrence H. Pockers and\u00a0Brandon Harper Continuing its trend of striking down overbroad restrictive covenants in the sale-of-business context, the Delaware Court of Chancery on March 4, 2026, struck down a worldwide noncompetition provision that expanded far beyond the seller\u2019s regional footprint in BluSky Restoration Contractors, LLC v. Robbins &amp; Popwell. BluSky, like &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/delawarebusinesslaw\/2026\/03\/06\/delaware-court-of-chancery-refuses-to-narrow-overbroad-restrictive-covenant-again-closely-scrutinizing-sale-of-business-agreements\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Delaware Court of Chancery Refuses to Narrow Overbroad Restrictive Covenant, Again Closely Scrutinizing Sale-of-Business Agreements&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[156],"class_list":["post-328","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"authors":[{"term_id":156,"user_id":6,"is_guest":0,"slug":"duanemorris3","display_name":"Duane Morris","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/843ff6e7a8fe5fc92109b47a45f34b6cf0ea499e6e788db23456c838b0ae6747?s=96&d=blank&r=g","0":null,"1":"","2":"","3":"","4":"","5":"","6":"","7":"","8":""}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/delawarebusinesslaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/delawarebusinesslaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/delawarebusinesslaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/delawarebusinesslaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/delawarebusinesslaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=328"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/delawarebusinesslaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/delawarebusinesslaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/delawarebusinesslaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/delawarebusinesslaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=328"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/delawarebusinesslaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}