A star ex-Morgan Stanley broker has defeated his former employer's attempt to slap him with a restraining order after he moved to Raymond James last year.
A federal judge in Nevada on Monday
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Morgan Stanley had sought a restraining order that would prevent Takahashi from soliciting business from ex-clients until the dispute could be settled by a Financial Industry Regulatory Authority panel. Federal judge Cristina Silva wrote in her order Monday that Morgan Stanley had failed to furnish convincing evidence that Takahashi had indeed taken confidential information.
Takahashi himself testified, according to Silva, that he had merely used public information found on the internet to track down former clients and inform them he had joined Raymond James.
"Takahashi explains that this is the same approach that Morgan Stanley uses when recruiting advisors to join Morgan Stanley," she wrote.
Takahashi did not return a request for comment.
Morgan Stanley, which declined to comment, specifically accused Takahashi of trying to poach clients now being served by an advisor named Steve Kleinertz. While at Morgan Stanley, according to the firm's initial complaint, Takahashi and members of his team were in line to inherit Kleinertz's book of business when Kleinertz retired. That book, according to the suit, contains hundreds of millions in assets and generates more than $1 million a year in revenue.
Takahashi and his colleagues never entered into a formal agreement to take over Kleinertz's business and left before they could do so, Morgan Stanley contended. But that hasn't stopped them from trying to solicit Kleinertz's clients, Morgan Stanley wrote.
According to the suit, "it is inconceivable that Defendant and the Takahashi Team Members would have knowledge of the clients serviced by Mr. Kleinertz and their highly sensitive information without having accessed confidential client lists and records that were not related to their job responsibilities for Morgan Stanley, and unlawfully have taken such information to their new firm."
But Silva found such assertions unconvincing.
"Just because something is 'inconceivable' to one person, does not make it inherently false," she wrote. "Kleinertz does not provide any specific facts demonstrating that Takahashi retained client information."
Takahashi began his career at Wachovia Securities in 2008, which was acquired by Wells Fargo that same year, and moved to Morgan Stanley in 2013. The Takahashi Retirement Group website notes that he is the recipient of various industry recognitions, including being named a
Takahashi was separately the recipient of an arbitration windfall in June when a FINRA panel
