Long-running AMP planner saga ends

Dispute settled out of court

By Madeleine Collins
Tue 07 Aug 2007

Contact dispute between AMP and a former financial adviser has been settled.

The long-running breach of contact dispute between AMP and a former financial adviser has been settled out of court.

On July 30, the Federal Court in Victoria dismissed appeals by both AMP and former Arrive adviser Angela Manning after the parties agreed to settle just prior to a full court hearing.

The terms of the settlement were not disclosed to the court.

"The matter has been finalised and both parties have agreed to a settlement. The terms of the settlement are confidential," an AMP spokeswoman told InvestorDaily.

AMP had tried to sue the Melbourne woman for poaching wealthy clients when she defected to Goldman Sachs JBWere in 2004. Manning had previously been ordered to foot her former employer's legal bills.

In March, Judge Ray Finkelstein had also ordered Manning to pay $45,000 to Arrive for enticing clients away from the firm.   He said it was "enticement pure and simple" when Manning called about 80 clients around the time she resigned to tell them she was unable to solicit their business.

The damages were far less than the $4.3 million AMP said Manning owed in lost revenue when around 60 of those clients followed her.

Manning was previously Arrive's most successful planner in Victoria.

Her contract disallowed her from soliciting former clients for 12 months after she had left AMP.

"The orders of the full court bring to an end an extraordinary legal saga which has occupied the courts for a very long time," a source close to the proceedings told InvestorDaily.

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