Goldman Sachs goes after ex-reps for 'pirating' clients

The Goldman Sachs Group Inc. is suing seven former employees of its private-wealth-management division who joined Credit Suisse Group AG for “pirating” the bank’s clients and reps. In a Feb. 17 complaint, the firm claimed that the employees, who were “high-level investment managers,” violated their employment agreements by attempting to steal clients and information, and recruit other Goldman employees after they moved over to Credit Suisse this month. The defendants named are David Greene, Craig Savage, Andrew Thompson, Sharran Srivatsaa, John Pitt, Stephanie Dennard and Kim Tyson. Credit Suisse is not named in the suit. According to the complaint, on Feb. 5, all seven defendants sent resignation letters to David Fox, the head of Goldman’s Atlanta office. That evening, two of the defendants, Andrew Thompson and Craig Savage, informed Mr. Fox that the entire group would be moving to Credit Suisse, which has offices in the same building. “Almost immediately after defendants’ departure, Goldman Sachs began receiving reports from those clients that one or more defendants had contacted them and requested that they move their accounts from Goldman Sachs to Credit Suisse,” according to the complaint. At the time of their departure, the defendants had over 140 Goldman clients. Goldman is seeking a court order preventing the defendants from disclosing proprietary information and to block them from recruiting clients. Melissa Daly, a Goldman spokeswoman, declined to comment. David Walker, a Credit Suisse spokesman, declined to comment.