By Kenneth Corbin

Ameriprise Financial Services is suing LPL Financial and three former Ameriprise advisors, accusing them of taking thousands of pages of documents containing confidential information and improperly soliciting their clients as they moved to LPL.

Ameriprise says the trio of advisors, who resigned Jan. 27 and promptly began working with LPL, engaged in "pretermination and post-termination conduct [that] includes serious misconduct and violations of various contracts and regulations, much of which was supported and encouraged by LPL," according to a complaint filed this week in federal court in Arizona.

LPL announced the recruiting of the team earlier this month, saying Jackson/Roskelley Wealth Advisors, led by Jared Roskelley and Kyle Robertson, served about $345 million in advisory, brokerage, and retirement-plan assets at Ameriprise.

"LPL operates with the utmost integrity to secure and protect client information, the firm says. "As a steward of advisor independence in our industry, LPL will vigorously defend itself against these claims and all of Ameriprise's equally frivolous cases. "

This isn't the first legal dispute between the two rival brokers. Last July, Ameriprise sued LPL, accusing it of encouraging incoming brokers to take sensitive data from their former firm as they were leaving. The firms traded shots in legal filings before agreeing to a resolution in December creating a framework for identifying and deleting information about Ameriprise clients who didn't follow their advisors to LPL.

In the latest case, Ameriprise says the advisors began presoliciting their clients well ahead of their departure from the firm late last month.

In their final days at Ameriprise, the advisors engaged in a "marathon print session" during which they printed 8,887 pages of documents that included confidential information such as client names and account numbers, according to the complaint. Those documents also contained Excel spreadsheets with summaries of their high-net-worth clients, including their holdings, beneficiary information, and information about 529 plans that included children's Social Security numbers and dates of birth, the complaint alleges.

Ameriprise is seeking a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction as it pursues an arbitration claim with brokerage industry self-regulatory organization Finra.

In the latest lawsuit, Ameriprise charges that the brokers were engaging in "misconduct with the knowledge and support of LPL, whose regular pattern and practice is to encourage recruits to violate their contractual agreements."

Ameriprise asserts that the advisors violated their contractual agreements as well as common and statutory law and the voluntary industry agreement known as the Broker Protocol, which was intended to set agreed-upon standards of conduct for brokers switching firms.

The lawsuit lists numerous causes of action, including breach of contract, misappropriation of trade secrets, and unfair competition.

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February 13, 2025 17:44 ET (22:44 GMT)

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