AMP’s Helen Livesey dragged into Larissa Baker Cook’s bullying claim

AMP’s head of people Helen Livesey was a key player in Catherine Brenner’s exit from the company. Illustration: Rod Clement

There’s nothing speculative about the latest alleged legal scandal to engulf the battler of blue chips, AMP.

The cast in the latest drama that’s playing out at the financial service outfit’s Circular Quay headquarters will be familiar to Margin Call readers.

There is AMP’s director of government relations Alastair Kinloch, “The Oracle of Circular Quay”, who tipped ScoMo’s May victory.

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And there’s his former colleague Brian Salter, the former Clayton Utz partner who was AMP’s head lawyer until he became one of the first scalps of the Hayne royal commission.

At the centre of it all is Salter’s former AMP legal colleague Larissa Baker Cook, who is also an alumni of the financial service shop’s erstwhile favourite law firm Clayton Utz.

Last week, she filed a case in the Federal Court claiming she was unfairly sacked in June. She’s asking for $2.5m in compensation.

AMP has denied her claims of “hostile, aggressive and intimidating behaviour by certain colleagues and superiors within AMP which amounted to harassment and bullying”.

Personally named as a respondent in addition to the $6.37bn company is one of Francesco De Ferrari’s executive team Helen Liversey, AMP’s head of people who starred in this column last year for her behind-the-scenes role coordinating the end of Catherine Brenner’s chairmanship.

With Liversey personally enmeshed, it’s little wonder AMP filed its defence early on Monday, weeks ahead of the court’s deadline.

The drama continues on December 3.

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