Cantor Broker Poached After 9/11

A British financial services firm illegally enticed a broker to leave a U.S. rival that was shattered by the deaths of hundreds of employees in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, a judge ruled Monday.

The decision was a partial victory for New York-based Cantor Fitzgerald, which lost 658 staff in the attacks on the World Trade Center. Cantor Fitzgerald had sued competitor ICAP, accusing it of plotting to exploit the tragedy and lure away key employees.

High Court Judge Richard McCombe ruled that ICAP had offered an "unlawful inducement" in encouraging broker Luigi Boucher to break his contract with Cantor Fitzgerald.

"There can be no doubt that the tragic events of Sept. 11, 2001, in New York provided the backdrop to what happened," McCombe said in announcing his decision. The hearing was held in London because ICAP is based in Britain.

However, the judge dismissed allegations that ICAP had acted illegally in the case of two other brokers who left Cantor. Like Boucher, Edward Bird and Spencer Gill took jobs with ICAP in April as Cantor was struggling to recover after the terror attacks.

McCombe was to determine financial penalties against Boucher and ICAP later. He also was to decide later about countersuits filed by Bird and Gill that claimed they were subjected to "domineering and bullying" behavior at Cantor's office in London.

"It is a fantastic result," said Bird, who attended court with Gill to hear the judge's ruling. "We can now start work for ICAP. We are going to start on Thursday."

Cantor had sought damages from Boucher, Bird and Gill for breach of contract, the repayment of a loan to Gill and the return of bonuses paid to all three.

Lawyers for Cantor also had asked the High Court to order ICAP to pay damages for allegedly inducing the brokers to break their contracts and sought an injunction banning ICAP from approaching Cantor employees for the next six months.

Attorneys for ICAP had argued that the three employees were victims of constructive dismissal, a British term for being forced out through mistreatment. The lawyers claimed that one of the reasons the brokers resigned was that Cantor had changed the terms of their employment.

ICAP had maintained that far from exploiting Cantor's disarray after Sept. 11, it had pledged $500,000 for the widows and orphans of its rival's employees. It also said Cantor had a history of poaching and that in 1999 Britain's Court of Appeal had ordered it to pay $1.67 million in damages for luring away about 20 ICAP employees.