ICAP Plc, the world’s biggest broker of trades between banks, sued 38 of its dealers in Singapore and Swiss rival Compagnie Financiere Tradition SA in a bid to block its employees from defecting.

ICAP handles $1 trillion in daily trades and “in one fell swoop” risked losing long-standing relationships with customers including Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Merrill Lynch & Co. and JPMorgan Chase & Co., Kim Rosenkilde, chief executive officer of London-based ICAP’s Asian operations, said in papers filed with the Singapore High Court this month.

 

The group had access to confidential data including clients’ list, trading strategies and brokers’ pay, ICAP said. The information, if wrongfully disclosed, would give its competitors “a unique opportunity to mount a wholesale raid on” ICAP’s workforce, according to the papers.

 

Rosenkilde e-mailed Steve Miles, managing director of Tradition’s Singapore operations on Sept. 12, informing the Swiss broker that the group would be breaching their employment contracts and ICAP would protect its legal rights, according to the papers. ICAP has about 300 employees in Singapore.

 

The court ordered Lausanne, Switzerland-based Tradition on Sept. 22 to stop recruiting ICAP’s brokers until the dispute is resolved, Mike Sheard, an ICAP spokesman, said in an e-mailed statement.

 

“Although the situation is somewhat uncertain, its potential impact is not currently regarded as likely to be material for the purposes of ICAP’s results,” he said, declining to comment further.

 

Regina Malzburg, a London-based spokeswoman for Tradition, declined to comment, as did lawyers Christopher Daniel and Suresh Nair who are representing the brokers. Tradition and the group haven’t filed their statements of defense.

 

The group breached their employment agreements because they failed to disclose that they had been approached by Tradition, didn’t serve the full term of their contracts and submitted resignations before a deadline would have allowed, ICAP said.

 

“Brokers operate as a tightly knitted team,” ICAP said. The men are “therefore in a position to exert considerable influence over the brokers remaining.”

 

A Tradition employee, said in a Sept. 9 instant message to one of ICAP’s brokers that the Swiss interdealer broker “will be an old ICAP bookies alumni,” according to the court papers.

 

The case is ICAP AP (Singapore) Pte. vs M. Divakaran & Ors S703/2010 in the Singapore High Court.