Priit Alamäe, CEO of Estonia’s largest IT company Nortal, said he had a real
shock recently when he found out that Nortal recently lost a contract to a company
that included some of Nortal’s former and current employees, writes Äripäev.
Alamäe said that at the time when the competing bidder by the name of Iglu made its bid some of the employees listed by Iglu as service providers were still working for Nortal.
“I don’t want even to talk about it, it’s like washing dirty laundry in public,” said Alamäe. “It’s so personal and nasty. One day you trust people, on the next they stab you in the back,” he added. Äripäev has learned that a large number of employees have left or are leaving Nortal. It was claimed that the company was laying off the whole personnel department.
According to Alamäe, three employees of the personnel department have left the company, but said that it was a consequence and not a cause. Speaking of the exodus, Alamäe said that Nortal has been losing middle managers also before, but this time some of Nortal’s IT people were participating in a competing tender at the time when they were still employed by Nortal.
Accordign to Alamäe, Iglu has been poaching Nortal’s employees and has also offered its services to Nortal’s customers. Alamäe says that Iglu has approached about 30 employees of Nortal, most of whom are now employed by Iglu.
In the last few months, Nortal has lost about 40 employees, most of them to Iglu. Iglu Ltd belongs to Mart Nõmper, attorney at law of law firm Rödl & Partner. One of the company’s board member is Kaarel Kuddu who is a former employees of Nortal and left the company in January.
Nõmper refused to comment the relations between Iglu and its customers, referring to confidentiality agreements. He did not say whether Iglu has participated in tenders by offering services of employees who were still employed by Nortal. Nõmper said that he had no information that Iglu has been using people who are being employed by Nortal.
“You have to ask Nortal about it, I don’t have such information,” said Nõmper.
Toomas Hõbemägi
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