MBIA has filed a lawsuit against CDC IXIS Financial Guaranty, alleging that intellectual property and proprietary information were taken when CIFG poached four senior staffers from MBIA in April and May.
Both firms declined to comment. Further details on the complaint were unavailable as of press time.
In April, Jeremy Reifsnyder and Rita Duggan moved from MBIA to the New York office of CIFG. Less than a month later Zhengyuan Lu and Richard Zogheb followed suit. Reifsnyder was brought over to head the firm's new structured finance initiative.
Also in June, CIFG, which is an affiliate of French conglomerate Group Caisse des Depots, was licensed to write insurance by the New State Insurance Department. The firm has already received its triple-A surety rating from all three agencies, though it has yet to visibly wrap a structured finance transaction.
Also currently in the New York office, and part of the structured finance team, are Abner Figueroa and Jim Aronoff, who joined last fall. When last contacted, CIFG was set to be capitalized with at least $500 million in cash and committed capital. The company has operations in Europe as well as the U.S. Parent company CDC IXIS is rated triple-A.
