AN INVESTIGATOR has been appointed to review the conduct of player agents Liam Pickering and Jason Sourasis following the resolution of their stoush in the Supreme Court of Victoria this week.
The AFL Players' Association's agent accreditation board announced on Wednesday it had appointed the investigator to determine if any breaches of its code of conduct had occurred in the battle between the Strategic and Precision management groups.
Pickering was this week ordered to pay damages to his former business partner after high-profile clients followed him when he left their sports management company.
Jason Sourasis' management company, Strategic, sued Pickering in the Victorian Supreme Court for breaching his contractual obligations and diverting AFL contracts away from Strategic to a rival company Pickering had set up.
Justice Michael Sifris on Tuesday ruled in Strategic's favour and found the company had been "impoverished and suffered loss and damage as a result of the conduct of Pickering".
The court dismissed Pickering's counterclaim that Strategic failed to pay all of a $200,000 sign-on fee he was promised for joining the company.
But the judge found in Pickering's favour on a second counterclaim about oppressive conduct because Sourasis and Strategic had kept Pickering in the dark about financial transactions and business deals.
Justice Sifris said "both parties have won and lost".
Sourasis and Pickering first met in 2010, with Sourasis discussing the prospect of the agent leaving his current role as AFL client manager with another company to join Strategic.
At the beginning of 2011 Pickering decided to accept the offer, resigning from his role but not beginning work with Strategic until 2012 in line with a non-competition agreement.
Over the course of 2013 the men's working relationship progressively deteriorated.
"There was clearly a breakdown and mutual lack of trust in the relationship," Justice Sifris said.
During this time, Pickering and player agent James Pitcher represented dozens of AFL players, including then Hawks player Lance Franklin, for Strategic.
Justice Sifris made special mention of Franklin, Dane Swan, and Jay Schulz because their representation agreements with Strategic had expired when the trio signed new player contracts.
Strategic missed out on income - derived from commissions - because Pickering had allowed these agreements to lapse before the men eventually joined Pickering's new company, the judge found.
But the judge found Pickering's company, Precision, was entitled to sign up 31 players and coaches who had left Strategic after he resigned from the company.