Former agency leader ordered to pay $8 5 million to Prudential for mass poaching of agents straitstimes.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from straitstimes.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
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A former top agency manager at Prudential Assurance Company Singapore breached his agency agreement by soliciting more than 200 agents and leaders to jump ship to rival insurer Aviva, the High Court has found.
Mr Peter Tan Shou Yi and his company PTO Management and Consultancy (PTOMC) were sued by Prudential for up to $2.5 billion for allegedly “surreptitiously” orchestrating a mass defection of 244 agents and leaders to Aviva subsidiary Aviva Financial Advisers in mid-2016.
The move left 70,000 policies without agents as a result.
Mr Tan provides services to Aviva through PTOMC, a corporate vehicle he owns that receives bonuses and benefits from Aviva to recruit new agents.
PTOMC is the company through which Mr Tan is providing services to Aviva.
Justice Chua Lee Ming, in an oral judgment issued on Wednesday afternoon (May 5), said that the losses that Prudential suffered is for profits that it could have earned from the departed agents from May 9, 2016, to July 23 that same year.
The assessment of losses would be calculated by UK consultancy Berkeley Research Group s chairman Richard Boulton, the judge added.
The judge dismissed Prudential s claim that Mr Tan had breached his fiduciary duty, as well as its claim that PTOMC had dishonestly assisted Mr Tan in poaching the agents and agency leaders.