(Bloomberg) -- Cantor Fitzgerald LP was sued by a former trader who accused the firm of using overly broad non-compete restrictions to wrongfully withhold about $17 million in partnership payments after his departure, the second such suit in recent months.

Christopher Cercy’s lawsuit was unsealed Tuesday in Delaware Chancery Court suit. Cercy was a bond trader at Cantor for more than 17 years and was a managing director when he was forced out in June, according to the suit. 

The non-compete provisions wrongfully “restrict and restrain fair and lawful competition,” Cercy’s lawyers wrote in the 20-page complaint. 

Karen Laureano-Rikardsen, a Cantor spokeswoman, declined to comment on Cercy’s suit.

Cercy’s suit is the latest installment in a nearly decade-long legal battle over Cantor’s non-compete agreements, which several former employees have claimed Chief Executive Officer Howard Lutnick misuses to deny compensation they are owed. Three former partners sued Cantor in March, alleging they were wrongly denied $10 million under non-compete agreements.

Read More: Cantor Fitzgerald Sued by Ex-Partners Over Non-Compete Terms 

Both Cercy and the partners who sued in March cited a ruling earlier this year by Chancery Judge Morgan Zurn, who invalidated portions of Cantor’s partnership agreement on the grounds that its restrictive covenants improperly impinged on ex-partners’ rights.

Zurn ruled in January that Cantor owed nearly $9 million to a half-dozen former partners who challenged the restrictions. Jason Boyer, ex-head of Cantor’s Hong Kong office, and Bradford Ainslie, formerly the co-head of equity sales and trading in the same branch, alleged in a 2014 suit they were denied promised partnership payments after they joined Reorient Group Ltd, a Chinese bank. 

Cantor is asking the Delaware Supreme Court to throw out Zurn’s decision.

Cercy claims in his suit that his bosses at Cantor, looking for a way to force him out, manipulated bond values to make it look as if he’d lost money on trades. Those values were restored when other traders took over his positions, Cercy alleges.

The case is Cercy v. Cantor Fitzgerald, 2023-0909, Delaware Chancery Court (Wilmington). 

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