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Cantor Settles Suit With Ex-Carbon Brokerage Boss (Update1)
2010-07-27 12:19:19.467 GMT
(Adds statement from Cantor starting in second paragraph.)
By James Lumley
July 27 (Bloomberg) -- Cantor Fitzgerald LP said Stephen
Drummond, the former head of its carbon-credits brokerage, will
repay a $2 million loan and drop an unfair-dismissal claim as
part of a settlement of a U.K. lawsuit.
Both sides reached a confidential agreement to end a week-
old trial, Cantor lawyer Paul Nicholls told judge Michael Burton
at a hearing today in London. Cantor said in a statement that
Drummond will repay the loan.
Cantor sued Drummond, a former executive at CantorCO2e, in
London for the return of the money it says it loaned him while
he was running the unit. Drummond countersued, claiming he was
wrongfully dismissed in 2009 for failing to tell the company he
was in talks with a competitor about a job.
CantorCO2e this year closed its London desk and shifted its
business to the U.S., where it is hiring additional workers, as
brokers lost share in the market for carbon permits and credits
to the European Climate Exchange in London, the biggest bourse
for emissions trading.
Nicholls told the judge that Drummond's employment claim
had been dropped and an agreement had been reached on the loan.
"Drummond has agreed to repay the loan from Cantor and pay
Cantor's costs in this action, withdrawn his claims against
Cantor, and apologized to Cantor," Cantor spokesman Robert
Hubbell said in an e-mailed statement.
Drummond, who was at court, declined to comment after the
hearing.
Home Loan
Nicholls said during the trial that the firm lent Drummond,
the most senior employee at CantorCO2e, $2 million to help him
buy a home in Oxford, England. The 2008 loan agreement said
Cantor wouldn't ask for the money back if Drummond gave up
equity in the company and agreed to stay at CantorCO2e for five
years, Nicholls said in court papers.
Cantor fired him a few months after providing the loan when
it discovered he had been meeting with competitor EcoSecurities.
Drummond claimed he was wrongfully dismissed, and says he didn't
owe the company money, because the $2 million was paid to him in
exchange for his shares when Cantor bought the business.
The cases are: Cantor Fitzgerald LP v. Stephen Drummond and
Stephen Drummond v. CantorCO2e Limited.
For Related News and Information:
Bloomberg energy stories: TOP NRG <GO>
Carbon-dioxide emission permit prices: EMIT <GO>
For top legal stories TLAW <GO>
Legal news and filings: BLAW <GO>
--With assistance from Mathew Carr in London. Editors:
Anthony Aarons, Peter Chapman.
To contact the reporter on this story:
James Lumley in London at +44 20 7073-3684 or
Jlumley1@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story:
at +44-20-7673-2227 or aaarons@bloomberg.net.
