Marsh McLennan Agency is going after a single employee, who came over in the acquisition of McGriff Insurance Services, for leaving for Howden US—taking 17 coworkers and over 30 clients representing $4 million in annual revenue.
According to a lawsuit filed last last month in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, Charles Baxter Southern III is alleged by Marsh McLennan to be a “business thief” whose “betrayal is staggering.”
He is accused by MMA of violating employment contracts to allegedly start a St. Louis office for Howden US in his basement.
On July 21 Southern quit his job, effective immediately, as leader of McGriff’s specialty marine team and its office in St. Louis to take the same role at Howden US. Several days later, his team followed him. Southern “orchestrated a mass exodus,” MMA claimed in the suit.
The lawsuit is one of several brough by Marsh & McLennan Cos. against Howden US, the new U.S. retail broking business of Howden Group started earlier this year. Marsh’s first suit was against a handful of former employees including Howden US’s current CEO Michael Parrish, and filed just as Howden US opened. Then just this week, Marsh filed another lawsuit against an additional seven former employees.
Related:
Parrish Named CEO of Howden US, Is Sued by Former Employer Marsh
Marsh Sues More Former Employees Over ‘Scheme’ to Open Howden US
Marsh McLennan Completes $7.75B Buy of McGriff Insurance Services[\sidebar]
Southern signed restrictive covenant agreements and other employee agreements he had directly with MMA or at McGriff, which were inherited by MMA. Similar non-solicitation agreements were upheld in the case against Parrish and others when a judge granted a preliminary injunction against them, MMA said.
MMA said Southern, with McGriff, used Howden Group as a wholesale broker. But as a MMA employee he was “obligated not to leverage that relationship for himself or use it to harm his employer.” He was “obligated to not discuss or plan with Howden to poach entire business units from MMA or how to cut MMA out of its own client relationships,” MMA said in the suit.
Southern is alleged to have visited Howden Group in London on a trip paid for by MMA to “conspire and actively compete against his employer by finalizing his future employment with Howden US” and make plans to take the team and MMA clients.
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