In shopping center leases, retail
tenants often negotiate for exclusive use covenants—i.e., agreements by the
landlord not to lease, or otherwise
allow the occupancy of, other space in the
remainder of the shopping center for uses that compete with tenant. The
exclusive use rights are integral to the retail tenant’s conduct of its
business, and to the value of its leasehold, within the center. If, for
example, a home goods store commits to paying rent on a location for five (5)
or ten (10) years (or longer), and to investing significant capital in
planning, permitting and constructing a new store site, it needs to have
assurances that its investment and future sales will not be compromised by the
landlord leasing other space in the center to another home goods competitor.
From the tenant’s perspective, it
is also important that its exclusive be enforced through a stronger enforcement
mechanism than ordinary default remedies, which often include only the “nuclear
option” of terminating the lease if the Landlord fails to cure the breach (and
sometimes do not even allow for that remedy).
From the tenant’s perspective, it
is also important that its exclusive be enforced through a stronger enforcement
mechanism than ordinary default remedies, which often include only the “nuclear
option” of terminating the lease if the Landlord fails to cure the breach (and
sometimes do not even allow for that remedy). If, for instance, another home
goods store offered the landlord 150% over market rent to lease space next to
the existing tenant, the landlord could have the incentive to accept the
competitor’s higher rent offer even if it means breaching the original tenant’s
lease; even if the original tenant exercised its termination rights, the
landlord would have essentially “traded up” by replacing one home goods tenant
in the center with another home goods tenant paying higher rent. The original
tenant could also file a lawsuit to enjoin the breach of its exclusive, but
lawsuits are time consuming and expensive, and with exclusive use covenants
there are always vagaries that make the outcome uncertain (e.g., arguments that
the competing tenant’s use is not proscribed by the original tenant’s exclusive
use language, and the general inclination of courts to construe use
restrictions narrowly with a preference against restricting the underlying
property). Accordingly, in order to address the landlord’s temptation (and to
remove the economic incentive) to breach the tenant’s exclusives, tenants with
sufficient bargaining leverage will often demand special remedies in the event
the landlord violates the tenant’s exclusive. It is common, for instance, for
the tenant to have the right to either terminate the lease or pay 50% rent (or
some other significant rent reduction) while the violation continues. As this
is a self-help remedy that tenant can enforce on its own (without having to
file a lawsuit), it is easy and efficient to implement—the tenant simply
reduces its monthly rent payments by 50%.
Faced with these potentially
severe consequences, responsible landlords take care to avoid violating the
existing tenant’s exclusives. The landlord can control this by (obviously)
refraining from leasing other space in the center to tenants who would clearly
violate the existing tenant’s exclusives. Less obviously, the landlord can
carefully draft the permitted use clauses in new tenants’ leases to not only
ensure that it does not permit a use that would violate the existing tenant’s
exclusive, but also ensuring that the new tenant cannot make future changes in
use (for example, as a result of an assignment of the lease or a sublease to
another user) that could violate those existing exclusives. The landlord
cannot, however, control another tenant’s decision to nonetheless engage in a
use that is not permitted (or even prohibited) under its lease. This is what is
commonly referred to as a “rogue tenant.” While the landlord cannot immediately
control the rogue tenant’s bad behavior in engaging in a prohibited use under
its lease, the landlord nonetheless becomes exposed to the severe penalties for
the violation of the existing tenant’s exclusives.
For that reason, landlords often
try to negotiate an exception to the implementation of the original tenant’s
exclusive use remedies, if the violation is caused by a rogue tenant (a
so-called “rogue tenant carve out”). The landlord argues that it should not
suffer the severe consequences for violations that are caused by a third party
(the rogue tenant) over whom the landlord has no control. However, from the
original tenant’s perspective, it still requires protection against its business
being severely affected by a competing business, regardless of whether the
landlord is complicit in creating that competition or whether landlord is, in
some sense, “innocent.” To the existing tenant, it is simply a matter of
allocating the risk between the landlord and the original tenant. Both parties
may be “innocent,” but one of the parties has to bear the risk of the
consequences of a rouge tenant competing with the existing tenant’s business.
If the original tenant is large tenant or otherwise has significant bargaining
leverage, its response may well be that this is simply a risk that the landlord
must bear. As a compromise, the parties might draft a rogue tenant carve out
that is conditioned upon the landlord taking affirmative actions to stop the
rogue tenant from continuing the violating use. After all, the rogue tenant’s
actions are not entirely out of the landlord’s “control”; the landlord will
have its own remedies against the rogue tenant for breaching the terms of its
lease, such as declaring the tenant in default, exercising default remedies,
seeking an injunctive or other equitable relief to stop the violating use by
judicial action, or even seeking eviction of the rogue tenant. The original
tenant will expect the landlord to exercise those remedies, and to aggressively
pursue them, as a condition to its forbearance in exercising its remedies for
violation of the exclusive use rights. At the other end of the continuum, if
the bargaining leverage is more equal, the landlord may negotiate for a simpler
rogue tenant carve out that simply precludes the original tenant from
exercising its remedies at all if the violation is caused by a rogue tenant.
There are a myriad of other
gradations in between these ends of the continuum, and many variants on how the
rogue tenant carve out can be drafted. Accordingly, this is a ripe area for
negotiation during the drafting of a shopping center lease, and
well-represented parties will negotiate a variant that is appropriate and
consistent with the business dynamics of the deal, the nature of the tenant’s
business, and relative bargaining positions of the parties.
Originally posted June 30, 2018 on tlawmtm.com:
http://lawmtm.com/retail-tenant-remedies-violations-exclusives.html
Originally posted June 30, 2018 on tlawmtm.com:
http://lawmtm.com/retail-tenant-remedies-violations-exclusives.html
Tom is a former REBA President
and principal of the firm (Moriarty Troyer & Malloy LLC) and chair of its Commercial Real Estate Department.
Tom has over 20 years of experience in representing Fortune 500 companies,
national and local banks, retailers, shopping center owners, and investors in
all facets of acquisition, development, operation and leasing of commercial
real estate throughout the country.
