Forex trading store

By Aaron Pressman

BOSTON, Jan 7 (Reuters) – Trust Company of the West, the U.S. asset management unit of French bank Societe Generale , Thursday sued its former chief investment officer, Jeffrey Gundlach, accusing him of stealing confidential data, lying to potential clients and keeping drugs and pornographic materials in his office.

TCW, which fired Gundlach on December 4, said the award-winning bond fund manager had misappropriated trade secrets, interfered with the firm’s contractual relationships with clients and committed civil conspiracy among other charges. Drugs and pornographic materials, discovered in Gundlach’s office after he was fired, violated the firm’s employment regulations, the lawsuit stated.

The lawsuit is the latest move in a battle for customers between TCW and its one-time star manager. Since Gundlach’s departure, TCW clients have withdrawn billions of dollars from the Los Angeles-based firm’s bond funds.

Gundlach, who was named Morningstar’s bond fund manager of the year in 2006, oversaw about $65 billion of TCW’s $110 billion of assets before he was fired.

At the same time Gundlach was fired, TCW announced it had purchased cross-town rival Metropolitan West Asset Management LLC, which won Morningstar’s top honor in 2005. The fixed income firm, led by Tad Rivelle, managed about $30 billion.

The 39-page complaint filed Thursday in California Superior Court in Los Angeles also named DoubleLine Capital LP, a firm Gundlach established after his firing, and three other former TCW employees who joined Gundlach.

In the complaint, TCW said it found evidence that several of Gundlach’s colleagues who joined him at DoubleLine had spent weeks downloading investment positions, analytical software and proprietary information about clients to portable computer drives.

The suit seeks unspecified monetary damages, ownership of Gundlach’s new firm and other remedies.

A spokesman for DoubleLine said the firm would respond to the lawsuit shortly.

(Reporting by Aaron Pressman and Svea Herbst, editing by Leslie Gevirtz) Keywords: TCW/LAWSUIT

(Aaron.Pressman@ThomsonReuters.com; + 1-617-942-1752; Aaron.Pressman.Reuters.com@Reuters.net)

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