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Media agency Ate Group founded by Aun Koh, son of Professor Tommy Koh is suing three ex-staff for allegedly setting up a rival agency and poaching clients from Ate while under its employment.
Ate’s clients have included Jamie’s Italian Singapore, Singapore Tourism Board, MasterCard, DBS Bank, National Heritage Board, Unilever Food Solutions, Louis Vuitton and The Peninsula Hotels Group.
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:
[Image: Picture-88-234x264.png]
Aun Koh
I have been completely disgusted by the unprofessional and possibly criminal actions by three former employees (coincidentally, all foreigners).
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.
Now, I have no problem with competition. And as I said, I’m happy to see my ex-colleagues succeed. But there are certain moral codes that people and professionals should adhere to.
These three, in my personal opinion, have demonstrated a complete lack of integrity and professionalism. To me, they have lost any kind of credibility not only as professionals but human beings.
I am actually shocked that some of our clients signed up with their new firm and am simply hoping they were misled, as opposed to actually supporting this behaviour.
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.
Why do something so obviously wrong? Why not part ways on good terms and compete then? There’s surely enough business out there for many, many communications companies?
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.
I won’t be naming these people here. I’m not that stupid or petty. But friends from various sectors can guess who they are. And I hope these friends won’t give these people or their business the time of day.
http://mumbrella.asia/2013/10/ate-threat...-poaching/
Ate’s clients have included Jamie’s Italian Singapore, Singapore Tourism Board, MasterCard, DBS Bank, National Heritage Board, Unilever Food Solutions, Louis Vuitton and The Peninsula Hotels Group.
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:
[Image: Picture-88-234x264.png]
Aun Koh
I have been completely disgusted by the unprofessional and possibly criminal actions by three former employees (coincidentally, all foreigners).
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.
Now, I have no problem with competition. And as I said, I’m happy to see my ex-colleagues succeed. But there are certain moral codes that people and professionals should adhere to.
These three, in my personal opinion, have demonstrated a complete lack of integrity and professionalism. To me, they have lost any kind of credibility not only as professionals but human beings.
I am actually shocked that some of our clients signed up with their new firm and am simply hoping they were misled, as opposed to actually supporting this behaviour.
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.
Why do something so obviously wrong? Why not part ways on good terms and compete then? There’s surely enough business out there for many, many communications companies?
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.
I won’t be naming these people here. I’m not that stupid or petty. But friends from various sectors can guess who they are. And I hope these friends won’t give these people or their business the time of day.
http://mumbrella.asia/2013/10/ate-threat...-poaching/
