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A legal dispute between FTI Consulting and one of its former top executives has escalated, with the consulting giant accusing its one-time star of plotting with Goldman Sachs to launch a breakaway firm.
In a court filing made public on Monday, FTI said consultant Jonathan Orszag was able to raid the firm’s talent ranks by offering equity to defectors, “backed by Goldman Sachs’ valuation and its expected investment”. Without its assistance, “Mr Orszag would not have been able to attract the large number of [FTI’s] employees needed to start his new firm”.
Orszag launched Econic Partners in early 2025 with start-up financing from Goldman Sachs Alternatives as well as multiple family offices, according to a news release at the time. The size of the investment has not been disclosed. Goldman Sachs is not a defendant in the FTI lawsuit.
He led FTI’s Compass Lexecon unit, which provides economic and financial analysis and expert testimony, most often in antitrust litigation around the world. Orszag, who joined FTI after it purchased his independent consultancy in 2006 for $72mn, was fired in November 2023 after a long-running dispute with FTI’s chief executive Steven Gunby over pay and power.
FTI filed a federal lawsuit against Orszag in Maryland in 2023 for allegedly breaching his employment agreement and fiduciary duties to FTI. Orszag has denied wrongdoing and lodged his own counterclaims against FTI and Gunby.
“FTI has once again resorted to wildly distorting facts and abusing the legal system instead of trying to compete on the merits,” Orszag said in a statement on Monday, describing the latest lawsuit as “desperate”.
Goldman Sachs declined to comment.
In the new court filing, FTI is seeking to add Mark Israel, a former longtime Compass Lexecon economic expert who had advised Google, as a defendant to the existing lawsuit against Orszag. The firm said new evidence showed that Israel, while still a senior executive at Compass Lexecon, worked with Orszag to set up Econic, starting in 2022.
Israel resigned from FTI last year and joined Econic, where he is listed as a founding partner. According to evidence FTI cited in its filing, Israel received a 2 per cent stake in Econic worth $20mn, valuing the start-up at $1bn.
Orszag and Israel “misappropriat[ed] FTI’s trade secrets and confidential business information and by steering numerous Compass Lexecon clients, professionals, and business matters to Econic”, FTI alleged.
Shares in FTI, which has separate large businesses in forensic investigations, restructuring advisory and corporate communications, have fallen about a fifth, or $1bn in market capitalisation, since Orszag was fired in November 2023. In earnings calls, FTI has admitted that retaining staff has proved costly, which it confirmed in the court filing.
“Compass Lexecon has experienced a significant net loss in revenues from its top 50 clients, including multi-million-dollar losses in revenues from over a dozen of its largest clients since Econic’s launch,” the filing said.
“Further, Compass Lexecon has lost well over a hundred professionals to Econic, and it has incurred higher expenses through retention costs and increased salaries due to Defendants’ actions.”
