Brown & Brown late last week received a measured victory when a Minnesota judge granted the broker a temporary restraining order against rival broker Howden US, who stands accused of taking hundreds of employees from Brown & Brown.
According to court records from the Hennepin County (Minn.) District Court, the temporary restraining order bars 16 of Brown & Brown’s former employees, now at Howden, from soliciting customers or recruiting staff. The former employees must also adhere to confidentiality agreements with Minneapolis-based Hays Companies, which Brown & Brown bought in 2018.
The order stopped short of stopping the former Brown & Brown employees from servicing clients that have already moved to Howden since December last year.
Judge Thomas Conley ruled Brown & Brown proved irreparable harm, both past and present.
During a recent call to discuss first quarter earnings, executives at Daytona Beach, Florida-based Brown & Brown said Howden has taken customers accounting for about $31 million of annual revenue, including $10 million in Q1. The broker previously revealed during a call on fourth quarter 2025 earnings that 275 of its former employees had moved to Howden.
“When a start-up U.S. broker conducts what appears to be a highly coordinated plan to lift entire teams from its competitors, taking information and customers in the process, it must be addressed,” CEO J. Powell Brown said at the time.
Late last year in Superior Court in Massachusetts, Brown & Brown filed a separate lawsuit alleging a “predatory scheme” on the part of Howden and its former employees that resulted in the mass exodus that allegedly violated employment contracts and stole trade secrets.
A judge in Massachusetts issued a temporary restraining order in December, Brown & Brown executives said, though Howden’s response to the request placed blame firmly on Brown & Brown, saying the rival treated its former employees poorly and undercompensated them.
Howden US, the new U.S. retail broking business of Howden, launched in August 2025 with Mike Parrish as CEO. In March, Parrish’s title was adjusted to CEO, Americas.
Brown & Brown is not the only broker with suits against Howden. Similar allegations of illegal poaching and trade secret theft have been outlined in suits from Aon, Marsh, and WTW.
Related: Parrish Named CEO of Howden US, Is Sued by Former Employer Marsh
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