A California jury has dismissed the poaching claims made Aon against its rival Alliant Insurance Services.
The jury delivered its verdict on 22 March, rejecting Aon's claim against Alliant and ten former Aon employees, including breach of fiduciary duty, aiding and abetting breach of fiduciary duty, breach of loyalty, intentional interference with contracts, and misappropriation of trade secrets
Aon had accused them of breaching fiduciary duty when the group of brokers left it to joint Alliant Insurance.
They were also found not guilty by the jury of helping and abetting breach of fiduciary breach, loyalty breach, misappropriation of trade secrets, and intentional interference with contracts.
In 2014, ten producers departed from Aon to join Alliant which was followed by other employees from the Fresno, Salinas, and Walnut Creek locations of the British global insurance brokerage firm. This culminated in a lawsuit filed by Aon.
Aon’s argument was that the departures were a conspiracy-driven raid although midway during an eight-week trial, half of the claims were dropped.
The UK-based firm had accused Alliant of perpetrating a similar raid in 2011 as well.
Following court hearings in California and New York, Alliant initially succeeded with a New York court declining Aon’s request for injunctive relief while also stating that California law applied to the legal row.
It was followed by a California court ruling in 2015 ruling that under California law, the non-compete agreements by Aon could not be enforced.
Headquartered in Newport Beach in California, Alliant Insurance Services is into property and casualty, employee benefits, workers’ compensation, surety among other financial services and products.
Image: Aon Center in Los Angeles, US. Photo: courtesy of Geographer at English Wikipedia/Commons.wikimedia.org.