The latest salvo has come from Marsh USA, which filed a complaint in US District Court in Manhattan against four of its former senior Florida executives. The lawsuit alleges that Michael Parrish, Giselle Lugones, Robert Lynn, and Julie Layton covertly conspired with London-based Howden to rapidly launch its US operations, bringing over more than 100 Marsh employees in a sweeping defection.
“Parrish and his lieutenants then worked covertly over many months, all while being handsomely compensated by Marsh, to aggressively solicit Marsh’s employees to join them at Howden,” the complaint states.
Filed under Marsh USA LLC v. Parrish et al., the action details how Howden, after failed acquisition talks with Risk Strategies earlier this year, allegedly pivoted to a recruitment-driven market entry plan. According to Marsh, the mass resignation began on July 21 and was immediately followed by client departures.
“To date, at least eight major Marsh clients have moved to Howden – resulting in millions of dollars in lost revenue,” the suit alleges.
Howden, for its part, has declined public comment on the matter. Yet this is not its first brush with litigation over alleged mass hirings.
Two years earlier, Marsh’s reinsurance division, Guy Carpenter, filed a similar suit in London after more than 30 employees were hired away by Howden Tiger, including senior European leadership. The dispute was settled out of court before trial, but not before Howden issued a formal mea culpa.
“The Howden Group acknowledges that it, and certain of its executive officers, engaged in unlawful recruitment from Guy Carpenter as set out in the admissions made to the High Court. Howden Group and the individuals involved... regret the actions they have taken,” the company said at the time.
The executive names included in that admission – Elliot Richardson and Massimo Reina – have continued to surface in subsequent legal proceedings involving the British firm.
One of the more colorful episodes came in the wake of a wave of coordinated resignations from Guy Carpenter, allegedly orchestrated by Reina himself. According to court documents, Reina used an off-site meeting to entice another senior executive to follow him to Howden, offering a €500,000 signing bonus and additional incentives potentially exceeding €1 million.
A judge reviewing the case remarked that this was not Howden’s first run-in with such accusations.
“The Howden companies have a ‘track record’ of arranging team moves,” said the court, noting that the firm had not formally disputed the most recent allegations before the expedited trial.
Howden has not been the sole subject of these lawsuits. In April 2025, Marsh turned its attention to rival Aon, accusing it of leveraging insider knowledge from Robert McDonough, the former head of Marsh’s surety practice, to orchestrate a near-instantaneous exodus of 20 employees.
In the lawsuit, Marsh alleges that McDonough was recruited specifically to enable the poaching scheme, and that his actions included sharing confidential information and derailing Marsh’s own recruitment efforts.
The complaint highlights one revealing anecdote: Marsh had arranged an interview with an Aon candidate – unaware that McDonough had already joined Aon and disclosed the internal plans. Within a day of the group resignation, long-term clients began shifting their accounts to Aon, naming McDonough as their new point of contact.
Meanwhile, Aon itself has also joined the fray as a claimant. In 2024, it filed a separate High Court suit in London targeting Howden and 10 co-defendants, including former Aon staff in Brazil and Europe, over allegations of coordinated employee theft.
The hearing – KB-2023-004487 – has centered in part on jurisdictional questions, with Howden reportedly attempting to exclude the Brazilian elements of the case. In Brazil, non-compete agreements are not legally enforceable, potentially giving Howden an advantage in the dispute.
Aon's legal team, led by Lewis Silkin, has taken a hard line, asserting that the defendants’ actions represent a deliberate effort to destabilize the company’s cyber, marine, and international insurance segments.
The rise in litigation coincides with Howden’s broader ambitions. In March 2025, the firm was on the cusp of finalizing a $10 billion acquisition of U.S. broker Risk Strategies – a deal that, if closed, would give it a springboard into public markets with a potential $30 billion valuation. That deal ultimately fell through and was picked up by rival Brown & Brown, reigniting Howden’s hiring push across the Atlantic.
Financially, the firm has posted robust results. For the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2024, it reported £3.01 billion in adjusted revenue, up 23% from the previous year. Reinsurance revenues climbed 30%, and organic growth remained strong across all units.
Yet the legal clouds continue to gather, with multiple jurisdictions and regulatory environments at play – and no sign of detente.
As Guy Carpenter CEO Dean Klisura previously put it:
“It’s not right that others can disregard these standards and treat breaking the law as just another cost of doing business. The court record shows that Howden senior executives acted in blatant disregard for the law by knowingly planning and implementing an unlawful conspiracy.”
For now, the courtroom remains the primary battleground – with the insurance sector watching closely as the lines between recruitment and litigation continue to blur.
