Marsh wins partial injunction against Howden hires

A federal judge in New York issued a partial preliminary injunction against four former Marsh executives who joined rival Howden last month, prohibiting them from soliciting former colleagues and clients.

Judge George B. Daniels in the U.S. 2nd Circuit ordered the executives to refrain from communicating with current Marsh employees about joining Howden, communicating with existing Marsh clients about Howden services and using any Marsh confidential information.

The court denied further sanctions sought by Marsh to stop the former employees from “engaging in competitive activities.”

Marsh sued the executives in late July in Marsh USA LLC v. Michael Parrish, Giselle Lugones, Robert Lynn, and Julie Layton, alleging that they, “under cover of darkness,” laid the groundwork for Howden to create a U.S. business overnight.

The executives, led by Mr. Parrish, Marsh’s former Florida zone leader, resigned from Marsh shortly before London-based Howden launched a U.S. retail brokerage on Aug. 4. Ms. Layton is already working for Howden and the other three executives are due to join the brokerage on Sept. 22, court documents say.

In the order granting the partial preliminary injunction, Judge Daniels stated, “Marsh has demonstrated that it is likely to succeed on certain of its claims for breach of Defendants’ non-solicitation and non-disclosure covenants.”

A representative for Howden declined to comment on the order.