Attorneys representing Bear Stearns and Deutsche Bank were in a New York State Supreme Court last week attempting to sort out a dispute over three fixed-income analysts whose employment status is in limbo. At issue are gardening leave provisions in the analysts' contracts, which prevent them from leaving Bear Stearns for a competitor for a specified period of time, says Ted Meyer, a Deutsche Bank spokesman. Meyer says that while Deutsche Bank had hoped for a resolution last Wednesday, nothing had been settled as of last Thursday evening. Alan Gelb, an attorney with Jones Hirsch Connors & Bull, which is representing Bear Stearns in the matter, did not return calls.
Marion Boucher Soper, a telecom and media analyst, Joe Princiotta, a basic industries analyst, and Ann Maysek, who covers finance companies, left Bear Stearns over two months ago (BW, 3/13). They still have not joined Deutsche Bank, even though the firm announced their hires in a press release on March 14. John Otis, a banking analyst who also left with the group, has already settled in at Deutsche Bank. Boucher Soper is slated to become Deutsche Bank's U.S. head of high-grade research. She did not return calls to her mobile phone, and Princiotta did not return calls to his home. Maysek could not be reached.
Gardening leave provisions are typically included to prevent key personnel from going to a competitor while a deal in which they are involved is still pending. However, in this case, the dispute appears to be at least in part over which firm's name will be beside the analysts if they land coveted positions on theInstitutional Investor All-America Fixed-Income Research team, according to a person familiar with the situation. All three of the analysts made the team last year, and Boucher Soper and Maysek perennially rank at or near the top of their sectors. The 2002 team is slated to be announced in the August issue of the magazine. Analysts will be identified in the magazine alongside the firm that has them under contract on June 3.
Deutsche Bank's Meyer would not discuss the dispute in detail, nor would he furnish BW with the documents related to the case, saying the matter was related to "pretty standard contractual things." Responding to the observation that sorting out such a matter in court did not seem "standard," he replied, "it happens more often than you might think."