Former region head says his dismissal was the culmination of dastardly plot. Edward Sullivan says Morgan Stanley fired him solely because of his age.

Former managing director Sullivan, who is in his mid fifties, is suing Morgan Stanley and two of its human resources executives Jeffrey Brodsky and Eric Kayne, whom he accuses of age bias. Sullivan's complaint says that Brodsky and Kayne "marked the aging Mr. Sullivan for termination." The complaint adds that the executives torpedoed with his 2005 annual review by including a "made-up, poison-pen critique" of his work to advance their cause.

Pink slip

Morgan Stanley spokesman Jim Wiggins told Reuters that "the lawsuit has absolutely no merit, and we will contest it vigorously." Adds Wiggins: "This individual's job was eliminated as part of a legitimate business reorganization that had nothing to do with age."

Sullivan was one of six regional directors who lost their positions last March when James Gorman, head of Morgan Stanley's global wealth management unit, streamlined the business's management structure. Gorman cut four of the regional directorships in place when he joined Morgan Stanley in February 2006, but jettisoned two of the executives in the remaining slots to replace them with managers from Merrill Lynch, where Gorman had worked.

Sullivan, who got the pink slip about two months after losing his regional directorship, was one of those two. He lost his slot as Morgan Stanley's Northeast regional director to Richard Skae, who used to run Merrill's New York sales region.

Now Sullivan is asking to be re-instated with seniority and benefits, and for at least $30 million in compensation and punitive damages.

"Morgan Stanley holds itself out as subscribing to a culture of excellence and management transparency," says Sullivan's attorney John Crossman, a partner of the New York-based law firm Zukerman Gore & Brandeis. "Our client alleges that those promises were not honored. He was a 25-year veteran, well-respected, frequently commended, and all of that has been taken away."

Sullivan started at Morgan Stanley late in 1981, when he was hired as a branch manager in Burlington, Vt. He became a managing director in 1999 and a regional director in 2002. He took home between $800,000 and $1 million a year from 2001 to 2005, according to the complaint.

In 2004 Morgan Stanley agreed to pay $54 million to settle gender bias charges filed on behalf of hundreds of female employees. -FWR

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