J.P. Morgan Securities has obtained a temporary restraining order against five former advisors who broke away from the company to join the LPL network member firm Professional Wealth Advisors and are accused of soliciting JPMorgan clients to move with them to their new firm.
The TRO, granted to JPMorgan by U.S. District Judge Matthew F. Kennelly on April 19 in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division, temporarily enjoins and restrains Brian Bellot, Scott Cimo, John Goblet Jr., Raymond Kermend and John Searer, "directly or indirectly," from "soliciting, attempting to solicit, inducing to leave or attempting to induce to leave any JPMorgan client."
The TRO also temporarily enjoins and restrains them from "hiring, soliciting, inducing or encouraging any current JPMorgan employee to leave JPMorgan or to apply for employment elsewhere," and also from "using, disclosing or transmitting for any purpose JPMorgan's documents, materials and/or confidential and proprietary information pertaining to" the firm and its clients and employees.
While employed by JPMorgan, the advisors had executed agreements that contained restrictions on their ability to solicit JPMorgan's clients and to retain and use JPMorgan's records after terminating their employment with the firm, according to the TRO.
On the same day that the TRO was granted, JPMorgan filed a complaint in the same court against its former advisors.
The firm alleged that, since their "sudden and coordinated resignations" from JPMorgan, on April 1 by Goblet and the early morning of April 5 by the other four advisors, and the "immediate commencement of their employment" with rival PWA, they started "soliciting JPMorgan clients to move their accounts from JPMorgan to them at PWA."
The firm also alleged that the advisors called its clients, including from their personal cellphones, "seeking to induce such clients to transfer their accounts from JPMorgan to them at PWA."
