Former Marsh execs fight restraining order request

In a court filing Thursday, four former Marsh executives who joined rival Howden pushed back against accusations they breached nonsolicitation agreements and asked the judge to deny Marsh’s temporary restraining order request.

Marsh sued the four Florida-based executives – Michael Parrish, Giselle Lugones, Robert Lynn and Julie Layton – late last month after they resigned to join London-based Howden. A few days later, Howden named Mr. Parrish CEO of Howden U.S., its newly formed U.S. retail business.

Marsh alleges the executives recruited more than 140 other Marsh staff and, within hours of the resignations, several clients notified the company they would be moving to another brokerage.

In a filing in federal court in Manhattan on Thursday, the executives said they had not violated any employment contracts and Marsh had not proved that they sought to recruit Marsh staff and clients.

“Marsh hired Defendants as at-will employees. They signed a series of restrictive covenant agreements, but the covenants’ terms changed over time, culminating in 2025 with a superseding set without non-compete clauses,” the filing says.

In addition, the nonsolicitation provisions did not include clients the executives had served before joining Marsh from Aon in 2021, and that followed them to Marsh, they say.

“The 2025 (restrictive covenant agreements) and the General RCAs also have liquidated damages clauses that provide a formula for calculating damages in the event an employee solicits clients in which Marsh holds a lawful interest,” the filing states.

Mr. Parrish and Ms. Lugones decided to join Howden after Marsh proposed moving them from guaranteed compensation to production-based compensation earlier this year, the filing states.

“If Marsh believed Defendants were as unique as it now claims, it should not have played hardball in negotiating terms for a new contract,” the filing states.

The case is one of several related to the executives’ departure. Howden and the executives had earlier asked a New York state court to rule that the restrictive covenants in the contracts were superseded and overbroad. And Marsh sued Howden in Delaware Chancery Court, though, the judge in that case denied Marsh’s TRO request pending a Sept. 4 hearing in the New York federal court case.