Aon UK Limited & Ors v Howden Group Holdings Limited & Ors [2025] EWHC 1148 (KB)
In an oral judgment given by Master Dagnall in the King’s Bench Division of the High Court on 14 March 2025, an approved transcript of which became publicly available last week, Michael Holmes KC and Dave Barnard succeeded in a challenge to the High Court’s jurisdiction to hear claims brought by the Aon group (“Aon”) against Mr A.J. Rodrigues, the former CEO of Aon Brasil Corretora De Ressaguros Limitada (“Aon Brazil”), Aon’s market-leading reinsurance and financial lines broking services business in Latin America.
Aon’s “Lat-Am” claims were brought against the Howden group (“Howden”), including various Howden London-based officers and Mr Rodrigues, following the resignation of 11 Aon Brazil employees in the autumn of 2023, and their subsequent employment by Howden’s Brazilian reinsurance broking entity. Aon’s claims asserted that various Howden companies and officers, as well as former Aon employees, had engaged in the unlawful recruitment of a ready-made Lat-Am broking team and that those actions constituted breaches of employment contracts and statutory duties of non-competition and loyalty as a matter of Brazilian law, as well as breaches of fiduciary duties and obligations of confidentiality, and economic torts including unlawful means conspiracy under English law. Mr Rodrigues was said to be Howden’s internal “recruiting sergeant” at Aon Brazil. Aon claimed damages in excess of £10 million as well as other relief.
Michael Holmes KC and Dave Barnard appeared on behalf of Mr Rodrigues, the Twelfth Defendant, until his resignation a director and CEO of Aon Brazil. Mr Rodrigues was served with the proceedings in England, as of right, whilst visiting Howden’s London offices. He asked the Court to decline to exercise its jurisdiction over the claims against him and to stay them.
Mr Rodrigues’ application was heard with two others over six days in June and October 2024. Following the hearing of a further application by the Sixth and Seventh Defendants in February 2025, Master Dagnall gave an oral judgment on 14 March 2025 addressing all four applications. In his judgment, Master Dagnall granted the jurisdiction challenge made by Mr Rodrigues and dismissed the other three challenges.
Master Dagnall concluded that Aon’s claims against Mr Rodrigues, if they were to be pursued, should properly be heard in the Labour Court in Rio de Janeiro. Mr Rodrigues was an employee in Brazil, and employment relationships in Brazil were subject to a mandatory requirement to refer any disputes to the appropriate Labour Court. Master Dagnall held that that mandatory requirement could be regarded as analogous to an exclusive jurisdiction clause in terms of expectations and rights, which would have required the staying of the action unless there were strong reasons for retaining jurisdiction, but nevertheless conducted a careful balancing exercise to determine the appropriate forum for Aon’s claims against Mr Rodrigues. Among the “strong considerations” he identified as indicating that the Brazilian Labour Court was the appropriate forum were significant policy reasons which favoured Mr Rodrigues being sued in Brazil.
Under Brazilian law, employees were protected as a category of persons by rules that ensured that, for claims associated with an employment relationship, employees could only be sued in specialist Labour Courts in the place where they work. In relation to jurisdictions within the United Kingdom, a similar protective public policy is contained in section 15C of the Civil Jurisdiction and Judgments Act 1982, limiting the jurisdictions in which an employee may be sued. The similarity in the protective intent of the UK legislators and the Brazilian state pointed firmly to the mutual recognition of those aims for the reasons set out by Sales LJ in Petter v EMC Europe Ltd [2015] EWCA Civ 828; [2016] ILPr 3.
Finally, Master Dagnall, having considered the decision of the Court of Appeal in Mariana v BHP [2022] 1 WLR 4691, accepted that Aon had no legal or commercial need to sue Mr Rodrigues independently. That fact undermined the suggestion made by Aon that there was a danger of irreconcilable judgments unless Mr Rodrigues was a defendant, together with all other Defendants, in combined London proceedings.
Michael and Dave were instructed by Sophie Lalor-Harbord, Harry Spendlove and Francesca Bugg of Stewarts Law LLP’s Commercial Litigation Team.
