Gallagher v. Alliant: allegations over employee poaching lawsuit

The war of words between broker Arthur J. Gallagher and Alliant Insurance Services continues to escalate.

Gallagher has accused Alliant of engaging in “a corporate raid of Gallagher’s Chicago office.” According to the lawsuit filed on July 28 in U.S. District Court in the Northern District of Illinois, Gallagher says eight employees abruptly resigned without notice in July and went to Alliant. The broker says the resignations were “orchestrated by Alliant as part of a scheme to steal Gallagher’s clients before Gallagher could take contractually protected steps to protect its business interests, including its client relationships and confidential information.”

Alliant fired back last week, accusing Gallagher of “rampant sexism, discrimination and unfair treatment of women.”

“This case concerns women who became so fed up with Gallagher’s sexist and unfair treatment that they each separately decided to do what countless numbers of unhappy employees in this free country do almost every day: leave for a better opportunity,” Alliant says. “The only thing Gallagher can prove Alliant did is hire Gallagher’s employees and offer them better opportunities. Of course, competing for talented employees who are free to leave is not a tort. It’s called capitalism.”

Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. v. Alliant Insurance Services Inc. alleges that on July 11, three Chicago Gallagher employees who worked together closely on several important accounts informed Gallagher they were resigning effective immediately, despite having signed an employment agreement requiring them to provide 21 days’ written notice of their resignations.

They later were followed by five additional Gallagher employees, the lawsuit says. The complaint charges that Alliant immediately began contacting Gallagher clients to induce them to leave Gallagher and move their business to Alliant, including falsely telling one large client there was no one left to service their account.

This is not the first time Gallagher has accused Alliant of taking employees and clients. In September 2020, Gallagher sued Alliant for poaching and has filed similar suits, all ongoing, in California, Florida, Massachusetts and Texas. Other competitors also have sued Alliant. The complaint says Alliant faces more than 40 lawsuits in dozens of jurisdictions from such companies as Aon, Lockton, Willis and NFP.

“Alliant has stolen employees, customers, revenue and confidential information, and it used present and former Gallagher employees to accomplish its unlawful goal,” Gallagher says. “Alliant has effectuated its ‘leveraged hire strategy’ consistent with its past unlawful conduct directed at competitors, and Gallagher has unfortunately become a primary target.”

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Gallagher, which is seeking a restraining order, says in the complaint that outgoing employees conspire with Alliant to act as “double agents,” allegedly continuing to collect a paycheck from competitors while acting in the interests of Alliant until a coordinated resignation is determined.

“Alliant consistently disputes the reality of coordinated schemes,” Gallagher says. “Yet in case after case and jurisdiction after jurisdiction, employees of its competitors resign simultaneously, violate contractual non-solicit provisions, show up at an Alliant office on the same day to immediately begin their formal employment with Alliant and proceed to misuse confidential information to solicit and thereafter service their former employer’s clients. This is not coincidence. Alliant is the common thread (or as one court recently termed it, the ‘puppet master’), driving this tortious conduct across the country.”