A High Court judge yesterday ordered a leading London stockbroker to stop poaching its rival’s staff.
US-owned BGC was told it must not approach staff working for rival Tullett Prebon, who has accused the inter-dealer broker of “underhand behaviour” in trying to persuade staff to jump ship.
Tullett’s has asked for an injunction against BGC, which has yet to put its side of the case, to be in place until the full trial commences in the summer.
The judge said yesterday that based on the evidence presented so far, BGC had shown a “cynical disregard for the law”, the Daily Mail reported.
Tullett’s claimed the broker had approached almost 100 of its staff to try to get them to jump ship. One individual still on Tullett’s payroll was used as a recruiting sergeant to entice teams of dealers to move to BGC, the court heard.
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Individuals were offered signing-on payments of up to £300,000, while whole teams were offered more than £5m in cash, to be split among the team.
Last August, UBS won a court order to stop former and departing employees from poaching clients.
