A Singapore agency claims it is threatening to take legal action against former staff for allegedly poaching clients.
Lifestyle specialist integrated communications agency Ate Group claims that three former senior staff solicited business while they were still employees of Ate before forming a breakaway start-up.
Ate was founded in 2006 by Aun Koh, son of celebrated Singaporean lawyer and diplomat Professor Tommy Koh, and his wife. Koh no longer has an operational role at Ate, but remains a partner in the business.
In a long post on his Facebook page, Koh wrote:
"I have been completely disgusted by the unprofessional and possibly criminal actions by three former employees (coincidentally, all foreigners).Full story
From what I have been told, these three, over a period of time and while actually under our employment, allegedly worked to divert business away from us and to their new agency.
Allegedly, they lied to my business partners, misrepresented our agency, and even lied to clients.
Allegedly, they were, while still drawing salaries from us, selling their own services and poaching Ate’s clients.
It actually saddens me that in order to seek justice my partners are pursuing both legal and criminal action against these people. I don’t understand why three supposedly intelligent people couldn’t wait until they no longer worked for us to pursue new business.
What also saddens me about this incident is that I was always a huge supported of foreign (white collar) labor here in Singapore. While I know these people are surely not indicative of a huge population of expatriates, it does make me rethink whether or not these new arrivals are really grateful for the opportunities they are being given here or are they all just so self-centered that they don’t care about things like professionalism, integrity or even right and wrong."
