New York State granted temporary injunctive relief to a risk company, Aon, in a case of alleged non-competition violations perpetrated by one of the company’s former senior members. The court sided with the firm after what they found to be potential violations of fair competition laws and the the non-competition agreement executed between the firm and its former executive member.

The court issued a statement last week that it is allowing ARSN to pursue injunctive relief and a lawsuit against its former employee, Michael Cusack. He left the company recently to take employment with a direct competitor, Alliant Insurance. ARSN pursued the lawsuit after Cusack allegedly went to the new company and took with him several other executives, and as many as forty other employees. In addition, Cusack’s position made him privy to intellectual property and trade secrets which should not be shared with a direct competitor under the terms of his agreement with ARSN.

The lawsuit alleges that Cusack and new employer Alliant induced his fellow employees to leave ARSN and join Cusack at the new establishment, bringing the accounts with them in a planned exodus from their former employer. Before the move to Alliant, Cusack served as Aon’s Senior Executive, CSG (a construction services division of the company). All employees who followed Cusack to the new firm were employed by a similar division as the posts previously held at ARSN.

The lawsuit further alleges that Cusack, carried out this plan after weeks of reparation (during which time he was still an employee of ARSN) in concert with other members of the CSG division, a few of which were senior-level execs. They resigned without warning in June to pursue employment with the competition. Shortly thereafter, more than a dozen clients of ARSN moved their accounts away from the company, to be serviced by the rival firm under the direction of Cusack and the former CSG group. Further details on the case and its potential impact on ARSN and Alliant are not yet available.