Crain’s Chicago Business confirms tips that we received about 10 days ago (and which we wish we were able to verify at the agency’s SXSWi party) that a little recruiting violation has compelled Draftfcb to sue Digitas and two former employees, Brooke Skinner and Kevin Drew Davis. Here was the tip we got, verbatim, in the AM on Monday, March 5:
“DRAFTFCB Chicago may file a lawsuit against DIGITAS Chicago.
AdvertisementNew head of account planning at Digitas, Brooke Skinner, came from Draft, and has interviewed and made offers to planners at Draft.
As if the non-compete wasn’t obvious, Digitas new HR recruiter, Maureen Murray, just came from Draft, where she used to recruit for account planning.”
While Murray wasn’t mentioned in the Chicago Business report, the trade does state that the Draft complaint indeed stems from the agency’s belief that Skinner and Drew Davis wrongly recruited former colleagues after joining Digitas. Let the Windy City riff-raff commence. We’re trying to get some sort of comment from DFCB if possible, but in the meantime, read the Crain pub’s full report here.
Update: Well, Draftfcb’s statement to us is the same one they gave Chicago Business. In case you didn’t have the patience to scroll down to the bottom of that piece, here you go: “It is against company policy to discuss specifics around any pending litigation. We will say that if former employees violate non-solicitation agreements that they had willfully signed we will take the necessary steps to enforce those agreements.”