Cavner ordered to pay $325,000 to U.S. Bancorp

The order was handed down by a National Association of Securities Dealers panel that conducted arbitration in litigation between Cavner, Steven Clark and Rebecca Angus, and USBI, their previous employer. The order finds all three liable to USBI for ignoring and violating their confidentiality and nonsolicitation agreements with the company and for violating its code of ethics.

Cavner has been ordered to pay $325,000 to USBI, Clark has been ordered to pay $20,000, and Angus has been ordered to pay $2,000. All awards must be paid by Nov. 20.

The order does not require payment of punitive damages or attorneys’ fees.

“The panel’s award forces Cavner and Clark to repay the equivalent of what USBI paid them during their USBI employment during the summer of 2005 while they were secretly planning to take USBI’s business to The Signature Bank,” said Jay Dade, an attorney with Shughart Thomson & Kilroy, representing USBI, in a news release.

The arbitration and litigation arose out of the former USBI employees’ decisions to move to The Signature Bank in September 2005 and operate as Nadia Cavner Group at The Signature Bank Investment Services.

USBI has filed claims against all three, The Signature Bank and former USBI employees Devona Breeden and Brittney Murray; those claims are pending in the U.S. District Court in Springfield, and a trial is scheduled for March 26.

See SBJ's Oct. 30 issue for more on this story.