Scyne seeks a court order preventing the defection of a partner to Downer

Former PwC Australia partner Connie Heaney will on Friday find out whether she’s allowed to start a new job after spin-off Scyne Advisory sought court intervention.

Former PwC partner and Scyne Advisory executive Connie Heaney arrives at the Supreme Court. Picture: John Feder

Former PwC Australia partner Connie Heaney on Friday will find out if her attempt to jump ship from consulting spin-off Scyne Advisory has been blocked, after her former employer rushed to court to stop her.

Ms Heaney fronted the NSW Supreme Court on Thursday after her former employer tried to stymie her attempts to take up a job at ASX-listed engineering and consulting firm Downer EDI.

Scyne Advisory, formerly the PwC government consulting business until it was sold to private equity player Allegro Funds in a $1 deal, took aim at Ms Heaney, saying she was in breach of her non-compete obligations after taking the job at Downer.

Judge Guy Parker heard the matter, after blocking Scyne’s attempt to impose on Ms Heaney an urgent injunction preventing her starting work at Downer on Monday.

Scyne claimed Ms Heaney was bound by a 12-month non-compete clause in her contract, which she signed three weeks prior to advising the consulting firm she planned to leave.

Ms Heaney put to the court that her former employer couldn’t block her move as Downer was not a clear competitor to the government consulting firm Scyne.

The career consultant also said Scyne’s attempts to block her move risked putting her in financial jeopardy, given the alternative of no job and the likely financial difficulty she would face.

But Scyne said Ms Heaney was going to Downer to assist the firm grow its defence consulting arm, saying the former partner at PwC had spent years working alongside projects with defence.

Oshie Fagir, appearing for Scyne, said the firm was in an “unusual category” as it was both a new business but also the extension of a longstanding consulting operation given its spin-off from PwC.

He said this meant Scyne had to preserve its clients list and stop anything that might risk them being peeled off by well-placed figures within the business.

Mr Fagir said Scyne could not be expected “to deal without too much difficulty with the departure of senior personnel without the losses of client relationships and business information”.

The Greenway Chambers barrister said Ms Heaney signed her Scyne contract when the firm split from PwC, with Mr Fagir adding that Scyne’s restraint was less than PwC’s two-year block.

The fight between Scyne and its former partner and senior executive in its defence practice comes as the new consulting firm faces a pullback by governments on professional services spending and questions about its financial performance.

Sydney-based private equity player Allegro, which purchased Scyne, is unlikely to tolerate a poorly performing firm losing ­experienced people in droves. Almost 1200 staff and about 100 PwC partners made the jump to Scyne in November after the firms split under the Allegro deal.

But Ms Heaney’s lawyer argued Scyne’s attempts to block her leaving the firm were too little and too late, with the consulting firm only hitting her with court orders on the day she was set to start at Downer.

The court heard Scyne and Ms Heaney were engaged in heated dispatches since at least November last year, with the firm placing its one-time defence partner on gardening leave for three months after she gave notice.

Ms Heaney’s lawyers argued the former partner had been clear throughout the process that Downer was not a competitor to Scyne and the roll she was taking up was internal, rather than a mirror of her position at Scyne.

Justice Parker said he considered Scyne’s application to block Ms Heaney from all roles at Downer perhaps too broad, but questioned why she had not con­sidered a lesser paid job while she served out her non-compete period. He will deliver his judgment in the matter on Friday.