An entity may have a portfolio of customers or a market share and expect that, because of its
efforts in building customer relationships and loyalty, the customers will continue to trade with
the entity. However, in the absence of legal rights to protect, or other ways to control, the
relationships with customers or the loyalty of the customers to the entity, the entity usually has
insufficient control over the expected economic benefits from customer relationships and
loyalty for such items (eg portfolio of customers, market shares, customer relationships and
customer loyalty) to meet the definition of intangible assets. In the absence of legal rights to
protect customer relationships, exchange transactions for the same or similar non-contractual
customer relationships (other than as part of a business combination) provide evidence that
the entity is nonetheless able to control the expected future economic benefits flowing from
the customer relationships. Because such exchange transactions also provide evidence that
the customer relationships are separable, those customer relationships meet the definition of
an intangible asset.