I think there is, and it depends not only on the thickness of MgO, but also on the reference layer itself(just suppose our free layer is a CoFeB single layer). There are several works on the coupling between ref and free layers, e.g. 10.1109/TMAG.2013.2245308. If one carefully modifies the stray field of the reference layer, the coupling can be canceled, in my point of view.