NEW YORK — Capital One Financial Corp. is taking its former head of banking, John Kanas, to court.
Kanas, now the chairman and chief executive of BankUnited Inc., agreed not to compete with Capital One in the New York market when he left his former employer, according to disclosures from both companies. BankUnited agreed in June to buy Herald National Bank of New York.
Capital One alleged in a suit filed Thursday in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia that Kanas violated the noncompete agreement with the Herald deal and other action, and asked the court to enforce it.
The bank also sued John Bohlsen, BankUnited's vice chairman and chief lending officer. Bohlsen led Capital One's commercial banking business and the suit said he too is part of a noncompete agreement.
A spokeswoman for Capital One said Kanas and Bohlsen "received compensation in exchange for their clear promise not to engage in competitive actions" in New York, Connecticut, and New Jersey until August 2012. "We fully support legitimate competition in the banking industry, but we expect non-compete agreements negotiated in good faith to be honored in full."
Kanas said, "I have always lived by the terms of my agreement with Capital One and intend to continue to do so." Bohlsen couldn't immediately be reached for comment.
Kanas was chairman and chief executive of North Fork Bancorp.; Bohlsen was also an executive at North Fork. Kanas was instrumental in first expanding, and then selling the Melville, N.Y., bank in 2006 to Capital One. He initially stayed with his new employer.
Kanas left in August 2007, and in 2008 started to pursue struggling BankUnited in Florida, which failed in 2009 and was bought from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. by a group of private-equity investors led by Kanas.
