From the Desk of Jim Eccleston at Eccleston Law LLC:
On October 26, 2016, advisor Thomas Pink left Wells Fargo Advisors to join RBC Wealth Management in Stillwater, Minnesota. Mr. Pink has $154 million in assets under management.
From the Desk of Jim Eccleston at Eccleston Law LLC:
On October 26, 2016, advisors Jeff Cohen, Christian Clinton and Jena Burrows left Wells Fargo Advisors to join Robert W. Baird & Company in Stuart, Florida. The team has $343 million in assets under management.
From the Desk of Jim Eccleston at Eccleston Law LLC:
On September 30, 2016, advisors Alejandro Triana, Christopher Murrle and Carlos Saitcevsky left Citigroup to join Wells Fargo Advisors in Miami, Florida. The team has $600 million in assets under management.
From the Desk of Jim Eccleston at Eccleston Law LLC:
Advisors Rajeev Dhillon and Joseph Lesko left J.P. Morgan Securities to Join Wells Fargo Advisors in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The team has $253 million in assets under management.
From the Desk of Jim Eccleston at Eccleston Law LLC:
A battle between Wells Fargo Advisors and a former employee turned ugly when emails leaked showing the employee purportedly had funneled business to his new firm, while still employed at Wells Fargo.
Wells Fargo accuses the rep of funneling business for eight months before he officially left the company. He is alleged to have breached his fiduciary duty and to have engaged in a “civil conspiracy.” Wells Fargo is asking for more than $1.7 million in damages.
The attorneys of Eccleston Law LLC represent investors and advisers nationwide in securities and employment matters. Our attorneys draw on a combined experience of nearly 65 years in delivering the highest quality legal services.
From the Desk of Jim Eccleston at Eccleston Law Offices:
FINRA enforcement has sanctioned a Wells Fargo Advisor with a 90-day suspension for taking more information than is allowed when he left a credit union affiliated with Raymond James Financial Services to join Wells Fargo Advisors (then Wachovia Securities) in late November 2008.
Prior to resigning from the credit union, where Steven Tomlinson had worked as manager of the investment services group as well as a Raymond James branch manager, Tomlinson allegedly used a personal flash drive to download confidential customer information, including account balances, social security numbers, dates of birth, and quarterly account statements. Of the 2,000 customers whose information he downloaded, only about 200 were his clients.
According to FINRA, Tomlinson provided the flash drive to a Wells Fargo administrative assistant so she could create mailing labels for announcements that he had joined Wells Fargo. While she worked with the flash drive, Tomlinson did not supervise the administrative assistant, and never informed her that the drive contained confidential information, was unencrypted and was not password protected.
This disciplinary decision underscores the need for reps to hire competent financial services employment attorneys to effectuate a move from one firm to another firm.
The attorneys of Eccleston Law Offices represent investors and advisers nationwide in securities and employment matters. Our attorneys draw on a combined experience of nearly 50 years in delivering the highest quality legal services.
From the Desk of Jim Eccleston at Eccleston Law Offices:
As registered investment advisers have become a more serious competitor, UBS Wealth Management Americas is considering its own independent channel.
UBS is considering an independent firm, similar to Wells Fargo Advisors Financial Network, where around 1,500 advisers function as the independent arm of the wirehouse.
According to a client survey UBS performed, clients are attracted to an RIA for objective advice. UBS also seeks to integrate its banking and insurance products, where UBS believes that it has a competitive advantage.
The attorneys of Eccleston Law Offices represent investors and advisers nationwide in securities and employment matters. Our attorneys draw on a combined experience of nearly 50 years in delivering the highest quality legal services.
From the Desk of Jim Eccleston at Eccleston Law Offices:
A FINRA arbitration panel has denied Wells Fargo’sclaim on a promissory note, and instead has been ordered Wells Fargo to pay the adviser, Michael Hawkes, $925,000 in compensatory damages and attorneys’ fees.
The rep claimed that he was forced to resign based on false allegations that he had forged a client signature, and that the firm had retaliated against him by placing defamatory remarks on his CRD.
The attorneys of Eccleston Law Offices represent investors and advisers nationwide in securities and employment matters. Our attorneys draw on a combined experience of nearly 50 years in delivering the highest quality legal services.
From the Desk of Jim Eccleston at Eccleston Law:
The nation’s largest brokerage by adviser head count, Morgan Stanley Wealth Management, lost $8.4 billion in client assets during the third quarter, as some of its major producers took their business to competing firms. In the three-month period ended September 30, 2013, the average assets under management of advisers who moved also jumped nearly 25% from the previous year, to $402.2 million. Generally speaking, adviser movement with small books of businesses is not tracked by the data, and advisers do not necessarily take all of their business to the new firm.
Four of the 10 largest departures from Morgan Stanley in the third quarter were to other wirehouses. Three teams managing $7.9 billion in assets moved to UBS Financial Services Inc., while a $1 billion team in the New York area switched to Wells Fargo Advisors LLC.Morgan Stanley did add some major advisers last quarter. However, high-profile losses appeared to offset Morgan Stanley’s recruitment successes last quarter.
Given that Morgan Stanley had 16,321 advisers and $1.8 trillion in assets at the end of the second quarter, according to the company’s regulatory filings, it still is the largest wirehouse by advisers and the second largest by assets.
The attorneys of Eccleston Law represent investors and advisers nationwide in securities and employment matters.
Wells Fargo Advisors claimed that former representative Randall A. Fisher failed to repay the balance due on his promissory note upon termination from employment. Fisher denied the allegations and filed a counter-claim in which he alleged that he was constructively discharged.
The FINRA arbitration panel ordered Fisher to pay Wells Fargo $530,644.45 plus interest, costs, and attorneys’ fees. However, the arbitration panel also ordered Wells Fargo to pay Fisher $594,840.00 plus attorneys’ fees. The net sum is $48,172.61 owed to Wells Fargo.
Wells Fargo came up short here netting just $48,000 and walking away for slightly more than 6% of the damages the Claimant originally sought. Here, the advisers’ wrongful termination effectively negated the promissory note collection claim.