A top London model agent who has had Naomi Campbell, Claudia Schiffer and Cindy Crawford on his books today spoke of his “shock and betrayal” after a rogue employee lured rising stars to a rival firm.
Chris Owen, co-founder of Covent Garden-based Premier Model Management, sued “super-booker” John Bruce after he was found to be poaching models and plundering confidential data.
Bruce, himself an ex-model and star of Channel 4’s series The Model Agency, faces financial ruin after a High Court judge ruled he violated his employment contract and cheated Premier of more than £20,000 in travel expenses.
Mr Owen sacked Bruce in July when the firm found out he had secretly set up a rival agency with his partner, Paulo Ribeiro, nine months earlier.
The pair poached models such as Brazil’s Talita Correa to the new firm, Paulo Ribeiro Management, or PRM, of which Bruce was a director and shareholder.
When Mr Owen became suspicious he asked his brother Michael to help investigate his star booker, who generated a third of the agency’s income.
Mr Owen, 60, who founded Premier with his sister,
Carole White, in 1981, said: “Michael went through his emails, and discovered all sorts of things. He was plundering our data and defrauding us.”
The email trawl revealed Bruce had booked flights for himself all over the world including to New York, Miami and Brazil, under the pretence of official Premier business, as well stealing information.
Mr Owen said: “We were absolutely shocked by the disloyalty, his sense of entitlement and the betrayal.
"We felt gutted, and really disappointed. Not only that John had actually done this but that he was in denial about it.”
After sacking Bruce for gross misconduct, the company served papers in the High Court claiming damages.
Yesterday Judge Simon Crookenden QC ruled that Bruce had breached his employment contract and cheated Premier of more than £20,000 in travel expenses.
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Bruce was ordered to pay back the fiddled expenses as well as tens of thousands of pounds in compensation for jobs that went to PRM instead of Premier. He also faces a legal bill estimated at £100,000.
The judge issued an injunction forbidding him from soliciting or engaging any of Premier’s present staff or endeavouring to canvass or entice away any model who has been represented by the agency since August 1, 2001.
Bruce was also banned from disclosing any confidential information he had obtained from Premier.
Bruce claimed he never intended to harm Premier, and that he did not know his partner had made him a director and 50 per cent shareholder of the new firm.
