TWO stockbrokers from the Ribble Valley are celebrating after winning a ‘David and Goliath’ court battle against a large financial firm.

Tracey Simpson, from Whalley, and Wayne Hayhurst, from Longridge, had been employed by Edward Jones and built up their own client base from scratch among Ribble Valley residents and businesses.

But when Edward Jones were taken over by financial adviser firm Towry Law in October 2009, Tracey and Wayne decided to go it alone.

As part of their break from Towry Law, they had a ‘non solicitation’ clause not to contact their old clients.

However, 388 former clients of seven ex-Edward Jones employees – known as the ‘EJ7’ – including Tracey and Wayne, moved £33million of stocks and investment away from Towry Law to their new firm Raymond James. Towry then decided to sue.

Tracey, a former Whalley Chamber of Trade secretary, said: “I personally was served my injunction and proceed-ings the day I got home after giving birth to my first child in August 2010. Towry pursued damages of £6million.

“We were both astounded by the amount of clients that contacted us and wanted to work with us, most stating that it was the personal touch and the relationship we had with them.

“”Many of them had come to be friends.

“As you can imagine, this was a very upsetting and worrying time for us all.

“None of us had breached our contract and we had all acted with integrity.

“We were being penalised for giving good advice and having good strong relationships with our clients.”

Earlier this month the case was heard in the Royal Courts of Justice, with Ribble Valley clients going to London to testify.

The judge found no evidence of solicitation, and Towry Law have been ordered to pay the costs.

Tracey said: “It has been a victory not just for us, but for many small local companies that work in their comm-unities and do a good job for people.”

Towry law are not appealing.

Andrew Fisher, chief executive of Towry, said the judgment provided useful guidance for professional services firms wishing to protect their legitimate business interests.

He said: “We are obviously disappointed that the court did not find in our favour.

“We did not undertake this action lightly, but to protect our legitimate business interests for our clients and shareholders.”