LPL Financial contends it has become a victim of "serial litigation" in its industry rival Ameriprise's bad-faith attempt to hold back the outflow of its advisors to other firms.
That charge came in a response LPL submitted Friday to a lawsuit Ameriprise had filed earlier in the week accusing it of violating contracts and industry standards in its recruitment of an advisory practice named
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"In a deeply misguided and unfortunate attempt to stop the steady outflow of advisors, Ameriprise has taken to filing serial litigation against the advisors that depart it for LPL," LPL contends.
As in those other disputes, Ameriprise is asking for a temporary restraining order to prevent the recruited advisors from reaching out to former clients until the dispute could be resolved by a Financial Industry Regulatory Authority arbitration panel. The complaint also seeks to have LPL return any client information the advisory team might have taken with it when it was recruited.
Ameriprise's suit is the latest to question what pieces of client data advisors are entitled to take with them when they change firms. The complaint accuses the three principals of Jackson Roskelley Wealth Advisors — Jared Roskelley, Matthew Tinyo, and Kyle Robertson — of printing out 8,887 pages of documents shortly before their resignation on Jan. 27 and taking up employment at LPL almost immediately.
The documents, according to the suit, contained client names, account numbers and spreadsheets with information specific to high net worth clients. Ameriprise said that departing advisors also told one client that they would be leaving and to wait to open up 529 plans — used for college savings and similar purposes — until they had moved.
In an accusation similar to charges lobbed in a recruiting dispute between the
An Ameriprise spokesperson said the team violated industry standards such as the broker protocol, a voluntary pact setting limits on the types of information advisors are allowed to take with them when they change firms.
"They misappropriated sensitive client data, pre-solicited clients and stole trade secrets," the spokesperson said. "We look forward to proving our claims in court."
Roskelley, Tinyo and Robertson were quick to point out in their own response that they had been at Ameriprise for hardly more than a year, having joined the firm in October 2023. Most of the book of business they manage antedated that affiliation, according to the suit.
Roskelley, for instance, had 200 clients and $275 million in assets under management he had accumulated over the course of a 23-year career. Robertson, who began working with Roskelley in 2016, had 15 clients and $10 million in AUM. And Tinyo only joined the group in 2022.
"In short, the Individual Defendants brought hundreds of clients, and hundreds of millions in assets, to Ameriprise," according to the brokers' reply. They did not want, or need, Ameriprise's help in building their books of business — and, indeed, Ameriprise did nothing to help."
An LPL spokesperson declined to comment beyond noting what the firm had said in response to Ameriprise's complaints. The brokers, in their reply, said there was an easy explanation for their printing out thousands of pages in January.
They said they have a long-established practice of providing clients with six page-long quarterly reports and newsletters. They said some of their clients, many of whom are elderly, prefer receiving paper copies of the reports rather than emails. The brokers said they told Ameriprise about the reports when they joined.
"The quarterly reports were neither a secret nor a subterfuge; instead, Ameriprise is using them as a smokescreen of its own to manufacture a claim of wrongdoing," according to the brokers' response.
Ameriprise has enjoyed some success in previous recruiting lawsuits filed against LPL. Ameriprise
In the latest dispute, the brokers being sued said they decided to leave Ameriprise so shortly after joining because they found the firm "was not a good fit for them or their clients." Their and LPL's responses say industry standards like the broker protocol were, in fact, meant to ease advisors' transitions from one firm to another by decreasing the likelihood that lawsuits would be filed.
The pact has worked for the most part, according to LPL. But not, LPL contends, with Amerprise.
"Ameriprise does not attempt to work in good faith, despite its agreement to do so, because it does not want to avoid litigation," LPL said. "Ameriprise is chasing headlines, not a genuine resolution of purported legal issues."
