A 'forever' commission clause got tossed, but a tighter no-solicit deal held up
A real estate team tried to claim commissions on former clients forever. A Manitoba court shut that down, though it let a tighter one-year non-solicitation clause stand.
In an August 27, 2026, decision, Justice Chartier of the Manitoba Court of King's Bench ruled on a dispute between a Winnipeg real estate team and one of its former agents, who had left to work with another realtor. The court struck down a clause giving the team a cut of the agent's future deals with no end date but upheld a one-year clause barring him from soliciting the team's clients and contractors.
The agent joined the team as an independent contractor in November 2017. The agreement he signed included a commission clause covering what it called secondary transactions, deals flowing from clients or prospects he dealt with while on the team. Those transactions were said to remain the team's property in perpetuity, and the agent had to split commissions if a former or prospective client came back to him after he left.
Justice Chartier found the clause ambiguous. Terms such as secondary transaction and prospective client were never defined and are not standard in the real estate industry, the court noted. A related subclause extended the obligation to any former or prospective client who contacted the agent after he left, without tying that group to deals he had worked on, broadening its...
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