A Former Co-Owner Took the Customer List: The First Seventy-Two Hours

Preserve everything, change nothing, and do not send the email you have already drafted. Cases like
this are usually decided by what the records show and by how fast you moved, and both of those are
settled in the first few days — before anybody has filed anything. If value is actively moving, the
window for emergency relief is measured in days rather than months.

Here is what the first seventy-two hours should look like.

Suspend routine deletion. Email retention policies, backup rotation, log expiry, and anything that
overwrites on a schedule. This is the single highest-value action available and it takes one
conversation with whoever runs your systems.

Do not touch their devices or accounts. Do not reset the laptop, do not wipe the phone, do not
reassign the mailbox. A device that has been re-imaged is not evidence any more, and it is a fact the
other side will make a great deal of.

Capture the access record before it rolls off. Who downloaded what, when, and from where. Cloud
storage and CRM systems keep this and many of them keep it briefly.

Write down the timeline while it is fresh. Dates, who said what, when things stopped or started.
Do it in a document, not in an email thread.

Which records moved, and how. A bulk CRM export leaves a trace. A copied spreadsheet leaves a
different one. Photographs of a screen leave almost none.

What is genuinely confidential in it. The identity of your customers may be public. The pricing,
the renewal dates, the margins and the service history usually are not, and that is where a trade
secret claim lives — when a co-owner leaves with the client list
works through what has to be true.

What obligations attached to this person. The company agreement, any confidentiality provision, any
covenant, and — because they were an owner — the duties that come with that role rather than with a
signature.

Whether it is still happening. An ongoing solicitation is a different matter from a completed one,
and it is the fact that determines whether emergency relief is available at all.

Two routes, and choosing the wrong one first can cost you the second.

The demand letter. Cheaper, faster, sometimes enough — and it tells the other side exactly what you
know and gives them time to act on it. Sensible where the departure looks opportunistic rather than
planned and where nothing is actively moving.

Emergency relief. A temporary restraining order and a temporary injunction, where a co-owner is
actively soliciting or using what they took. Front-loaded, expensive in the first weeks, and dependent
on moving quickly — a company that waited three months to complain has a harder time explaining the
urgency.

The trade-off worth understanding before you choose: a demand letter sent to someone who is
actively taking gives them notice and time. If the honest assessment is that you will end up seeking an
injunction, sending the letter first can make it harder to get.

Do not confront them by text or email. Every message becomes an exhibit, and the ones written at
eleven at night are the ones that get read aloud.

Do not tell the staff. It travels, and it converts a documentary case into a dispute about what you
said about someone.

Do not access anything you no longer have authority to access — including a personal account, a
shared drive you were removed from, or a device that is not the company's. This turns your case into
their case, and it is the most damaging own goal available.

Do not "tidy up" your own records. Deleting anything after you suspect a dispute is worse than
whatever it was you deleted.

Do not call the customers with a warning. There is a right version of a customer conversation and
an improvised one is not it.

Three groups will ask within a week, and improvising with any of them is how a documentary case becomes
a defamation counterclaim.

Employees. They will notice. The version that causes no harm is short and factual: this person has
left the business, here is who covers their accounts, and any questions come to you. No
characterisation of why they left and no speculation about what they took — including in the meeting
where somebody asks directly.

Customers. They may be hearing from the other side already, which makes silence its own risk. The
useful call is about continuity — who serves them now, what does not change — and it is not the call in
which you explain the dispute. If a customer volunteers what they were told, write it down the same day.

Your bank, your insurer, and your accountant. A material dispute may be reportable under a loan
covenant, and a claim may need to be noticed under a policy within a defined period. Both of those
have deadlines nobody thinks about in week one, and missing an insurance notice deadline can be more
expensive than the underlying loss.

A departing co-owner taking the customer list is almost never only a trade secrets problem. It usually
arrives alongside a fiduciary question, an unresolved ownership interest, and a buyout that has not
happened — when a co-owner diverts business to a side entity
is the adjacent pattern, and
what a locked-in Texas owner can actually do is the wider picture. The
covenant question, which is usually the first thing people ask about and rarely the strongest claim, is
where Texas non-compete law now stands.

If this is happening now, the useful call is today rather than next week, and it is short: what left,
when, and is it still moving. That is our Texas partner dispute practice,
and the number is 512.222.6883.

Disclaimer. This publication is provided by Amini & Conant, LLP for educational and informational
purposes only and is not intended and should not be construed as legal advice. Should the reader seek
further analysis of the subject matter or answers to specific questions about the subject matter,
please contact the author at neema@aminiconant.com. This publication is considered advertising under
applicable state laws.

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