(1).jpg)
Following Prudential Singapore’s lawsuit against former agency manager Peter Tan over the exodus of 244 agents, Tan has counter-sued the insurer’s former CEO and two managers.
Tan is facing claims of up to SG$2.5 billion from Prudential, after he and 244 agents under the Peter Tan Organisation (PTO) jumped ship to Aviva.
Amid the legal battle, Tan, 54, is suing former Prudential Singapore CEO Philip Seah Cheng Chua and agency leaders Wendy Ho Xiang Yu and Royston Ng Youliang, the Business Times reported. The suit alleges that Seah had “wrongfully” induced Ho and Ng, both former members of PTO, to secretly record and hand over their conversations with Tan to the insurer, breaching their confidentiality obligations. Tan also alleges that the two agency leaders have been rewarded by the insurer for their actions.
According to Tan’s lawsuit, Ho and Ng, along with 40 other agency leaders, had signed a confidentiality agreement in 2015, prohibiting them from divulging information and materials related to PTO and Tan. In 2016, the duo also signed a non-disclosure agreement, which banned them from revealing "commercial secrets" Tan had learned from Aviva, which pertained to the mass migration of agents that would happen later.
In their defence, Ho and Ng claimed they were pressured into signing the agreements and were not given to opportunity to seek legal advice. Furthermore, they said it is their duty to notify Prudential that Tan was violating his obligation that prohibited him from soliciting agents to leave Prudential within two years of his departure.
Lastly, the duo maintained that they did not benefit from revealing the information, and that they, as well as Ho’s husband, were promoted on grounds of merit.
The case is currently in the pre-trial phase, following the defendants’ unsuccessful attempts to have it stricken out, and then to have it consolidated with the ongoing Prudential lawsuit.
