Nomura’s Mamadou Loses Bid to Strike Out Deutsche Bank Suit
December 26, 2011, 12:40 AM ESTBy Debra Mao, Tanya Angerer and Wendy Mock
(Updates with defective claim in fifth paragraph.)
Dec. 23 (Bloomberg) -- Daniel Mamadou, the head of Nomura Holdings Inc.’s Asia corporate solutions and financing group outside Japan, lost a bid to strike out a lawsuit against him by his former employer Deutsche Bank AG.
The court has jurisdiction because the claim is substantially about breach of confidence regarding the remuneration packages of Deutsche Bank colleagues, Deputy High Court Judge David Lok ruled today in Hong Kong.
Deutsche Bank alleges Mamadou disclosed employee information to Nomura to assist in recruiting them, according to today’s decision.
Lok gave the Frankfurt-based bank 21 days to amend its claim against Mamadou, its former Asia capital markets and treasury solutions co-head, to include the breach of confidence claim. Mamadou had argued the case should be heard by the city’s Labour Tribunal.
Lok said in the ruling that Deutsche Bank needs to expressly plead its allegation that Mamadou passed confidential information, and its claim is defective without that. The bank was ordered to pay the costs of the amendments.
Tokyo-based Nomura, Japan’s largest brokerage, hired nine other Deutsche Bank employees for Mamadou’s team in August.
Deutsche Bank’s Singapore-based spokesman Mark Bennewith declined to comment on the case when contacted by phone today. Mamadou didn’t immediately respond to an e-mail and a call to his mobile and to his direct office line.
“These allegations are baseless and I will vigorously contest them,” he said before the ruling.
The case is Deutsche Bank AG (Hong Kong Branch) and Daniel Mamadou-Blanco, HCA1514/2011 in Hong Kong’s Court of First Instance.
--Editors: Douglas Wong, Shelley Smith
To contact the reporters on this story: Debra Mao in Hong Kong at dmao5@bloomberg.net; Tanya Angerer in Singapore at tangerer@bloomberg.net; Wendy Mock in Hong Kong at wmock3@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Shelley Smith at ssmith118@bloomberg.net; Douglas Wong at dwong19@bloomberg.net
