Effective September 1, 2024, Texas will have a new court system for resolving certain business disputes. The goal of the enabling legislation is to have specialized trial and appellate courts to determine large and complex business disputes with the hope of expediting proceedings, have the disputes resolved by judges with expertise, and deliver more predictable outcomes for businesses. The other goal is to attract more business to Texas by providing a more business friendly court system.
Features of the new courts:
The new court system will include both trial and appellate courts. Judges will be appointed by the Governor and will serve a two-year term, but may be reappointed for additional terms.
The business trial courts will be established in the major metropolitan areas of the state. There will also be a new appeals court established solely to handle appeals from the business courts.
Cases can either be filed in the business courts as well as removed from other courts and transferred to the business courts.
Cases must meet certain criteria to be tried in the business courts. Generally, cases involving corporate governance claims, breach of fiduciary duty claims (officer and director liability), and other claims that have an amount in controversy of at least $5 million (no minimum amount for publicly traded companies), and business transactions involving at least $10 million in controversy will be eligible.
Judges must have at least ten years of experience in large and complex business transactions and litigation.
The courts will have their own set of rules that are supposed to expedite the resolution of the cases.
While not certain until the rules for the new courts are established, there may be more written opinions and decisions issued by the trial courts than we currently see, with the expectation that those opinions will build a precedent base.