Division 01
Dallas
Operational
Vertical 04 · Research vertical
In development · Launching Q3 2026Texas Business Court.
A specialized commercial bench for complex business disputes, operational since September 1, 2024. SMU CGI is tracking every case docketed, every opinion issued, and every novel doctrine articulated.
Overview
What the Texas Business Court is, and why it matters.
The Texas Business Court is a specialized statewide trial bench created by Senate Bill 27 of the 88th Texas Legislature (2023) and operational since September 1, 2024. It is the largest and most institutionally ambitious U.S. specialized business court created in decades, and it sits at the center of the post-2024 architecture by which Texas is positioning itself as an alternative to Delaware in the market for corporate domiciles.
The court hears specified complex business disputes — derivative actions, corporate-governance disputes, securities-fraud and shareholder-disclosure claims, internal-affairs litigation, and high-value commercial matters — that meet statutory amount-in-controversy and subject-matter thresholds under Texas Government Code Chapter 25A. Appeals from the Business Court are heard by the newly-created Fifteenth Court of Appeals, a statewide appellate court operational since the same date.
Judges are appointed by the Governor for two-year terms, subject to Senate confirmation, and must have at least ten years' experience in complex civil business litigation, business transaction law, or as a civil court judge. Each operational division is staffed by two judges. The court does not impanel juries unless the parties affirmatively request one and TBOC opt-in conditions are not satisfied.
The Texas Business Court is the institutional anchor of the SB 29 / SB 1057 reform package that Texas adopted to court companies considering moves out of Delaware. Without a specialized trial bench, the substantive Texas corporate-law reforms would lack the institutional infrastructure to be plausible alternatives to the Delaware Court of Chancery. The Business Court is the institutional answer Texas is offering. SMU CGI's research vertical tracks whether the answer is working — case by case, opinion by opinion, doctrine by doctrine.
A note on this page
This vertical is currently in development. The empirical infrastructure — docket database, judges' biographies, per-opinion explainers, jurisdictional-doctrine tracker — is scheduled to come online in Q3 2026. The substantive scope, sources, and analytical framing summarized on this page are stable; the dynamic data layer will populate over the second half of 2026 as the empirical work matures.
Key facts
The court at a glance.
Current as of 2026 following the 89th Legislature's HB 40 amendments.
Amount-in-controversy
$5M
Minimum for most qualifying disputes. Reduced from $10M under HB 40 (effective Sept. 1, 2025).
Public-company waiver
No threshold
The amount-in-controversy floor is waived when one of the parties is a publicly-traded company.
Judges per division
2
Gubernatorial appointment, 2-year terms, Senate confirmation. 10+ years business-litigation experience required.
Appellate forum
15th COA
The newly-created Fifteenth Court of Appeals hears all appeals from the Business Court.
Divisions
Five divisions operational. Six more authorized.
Five divisions opened with the court's launch on September 1, 2024. The remaining six are slated to commence operations September 1, 2026, subject to legislative funding.
Division 03
Austin
Operational
Division 04
San Antonio
Operational
Division 08
Fort Worth
Operational
Division 11
Houston
Operational
Division 02
Northeast TX
Sept 2026
Division 05
Southeast TX
Sept 2026
Division 06
South TX
Sept 2026
Division 07
West TX
Sept 2026
Divs 09 + 10
N. + Panhandle
Sept 2026
What we will track
Four layers of empirical and doctrinal coverage.
SMU CGI's Texas Business Court vertical will publish on four axes — the docket, the bench, the opinions, and the developing jurisdictional doctrine. Each layer is built to be re-runnable and primary-source-backed.
Layer 01 · Docket
Case database
Every case docketed in every operational division, tagged by subject matter, amount in controversy, party type, and disposition. Searchable by company, by judge, and by issue. Cross-referenced to the reincorporation tracker for cases involving Texas-redomiciled firms.
Layer 02 · Bench
Judges' biographies and case-load profiles
Background and prior-experience profile of every Business Court judge, plus a running case-load profile showing each judge's docket composition, ruling tendencies, and time-to-disposition statistics. The institutional analogue of what *Westlaw Litigation Analytics* provides for federal judges, scoped to the Business Court.
Layer 03 · Opinions
Per-opinion explainer pages
Every published Business Court opinion gets a dedicated explainer page — facts, procedural posture, holding, reasoning, and doctrinal significance. Each opinion is placed in the broader landscape of Delaware Chancery precedent on the same issue, with explicit treatment of where Texas and Delaware diverge.
Layer 04 · Doctrine
Jurisdictional & doctrinal tracker
A running tracker of the developing jurisdictional doctrine — subject-matter scope under Gov. Code Ch. 25A, internal-affairs doctrine application, the TBOC opt-in mechanisms (§ 2.115, § 2.116), and the § 21.4161 pre-transaction independence determination. The doctrinal layer that distinguishes Texas's institutional design from Delaware's common-law approach.
Comparative architecture
Texas Business Court vs. Delaware Court of Chancery.
The institutional comparison that defines the post-Tornetta state-competition debate.
| Delaware Chancery | Texas Business Court | |
|---|---|---|
| Founded | 1792 · ~230 years of continuous corporate-law jurisprudence | 2023 (SB 27) · operational Sept. 1, 2024 |
| Bench type | Specialized equity court; corporate law is core docket | Specialized commercial bench; governance disputes + complex commercial |
| Jury | No juries — equity bench only | No juries for opt-in corporations under TBOC § 2.115 (jury-trial waiver) |
| Exclusive forum | Charter may designate Chancery as exclusive forum (Salzberg v. Sciabacucchi, 227 A.3d 102 (Del. 2020)) | Statutory exclusive forum for qualifying derivative actions under TBOC § 2.116 |
| Pre-transaction safe harbor | No equivalent — Chancery determines independence during litigation | TBOC § 21.4161 — pre-transaction independence determination available by petition (added by SB 29, 2025) |
| Threshold | No amount-in-controversy threshold for internal-affairs claims | $5M minimum (post-HB 40), waived for publicly traded company parties |
| Appellate forum | Direct to Delaware Supreme Court | Fifteenth Court of Appeals (statewide, newly created with the Business Court) |
| Institutional depth | Opinions routinely cited as national authority | Too new for substantial published-opinion corpus; structural role is deliberate alternative to Chancery |
Comparison drawn from Texas Government Code Ch. 25A, TBOC, Delaware Court of Chancery rules, and Goshen & Stein, Leaving Delaware? The Essential Role of Specialized Corporate Courts, 125 Colum. L. Rev. 2077 (2025).
Key TBOC provisions
Three statutory provisions that define the Business Court's institutional design.
Each provision is a deliberate departure from Delaware practice and is part of the structural case Texas is making for itself as a corporate-domicile alternative.
TBOC § 21.4161
Pre-transaction independence determination
A corporation may petition the Business Court for an advance determination that specified directors are independent and disinterested for purposes of evaluating a shareholder demand or special-litigation-committee recommendation. No Delaware equivalent. Added by SB 29 (2025).
Read § 21.4161 →TBOC § 2.115
Jury-trial waiver opt-in
Permits qualifying Texas corporations to opt in to a jury-trial waiver for shareholder derivative claims and internal-affairs disputes. Mirrors the equity-bench architecture of Delaware Chancery while preserving Texas's general jury-trial right elsewhere.
Read § 2.115 →TBOC § 2.116
Statutory exclusive forum
Designates the Texas Business Court as the statutory exclusive forum for qualifying derivative actions. Substantively similar to Delaware's Salzberg v. Sciabacucchi-permitted charter forum-selection clauses, but delivered by statute rather than left to private contracting.
Read § 2.116 →Sources & references
Where this work is grounded.
Primary sources
-
Texas Government Code Ch. 25A — Business Court enabling statute
statutes.capitol.texas.gov -
Senate Bill 27 (88th Legislature, 2023) — created the Texas Business Court and 15th Court of Appeals
capitol.texas.gov -
House Bill 40 (89th Legislature, 2025) — reduced amount-in-controversy threshold from $10M to $5M, effective Sept. 1, 2025
capitol.texas.gov -
Senate Bill 29 (89th Legislature, 2025) — added TBOC § 21.4161 pre-transaction independence determination
capitol.texas.gov -
Official court page — Texas Judicial Branch
txcourts.gov/businesscourt
Academic sources
-
Zohar Goshen & Tomer S. Stein, Leaving Delaware? The Essential Role of Specialized Corporate Courts, 125 Colum. L. Rev. 2077 (2025)
Columbia Law Review (open access) -
Shane Goodwin, The Texas Two-Step: Rewriting the Rules in the Battle for Corporate Domicile, 53 Sec. Reg. L.J. no. 4 (Winter 2025)
SMU Scholar · CLS Blue Sky companion essay - Eric Talley, Sarath Sanga & Gabriel V. Rauterberg, Delaware Law's Biggest Overhaul in Half a Century, CLS Blue Sky Blog (Feb. 18, 2025)
- Marcel Kahan & Edward B. Rock, The New Political Economy of Delaware Corporate Lawmaking, ECGI Law Working Paper No. 879/2025 (Sept. 2025)