The long-winding dispute over controlling clients and the information of financial advisors who formerly worked at Ameriprise Financial Services but moved to rival LPL Financial took another turn this week when a panel under the aegis FINRA Dispute Resolution Services ordered LPL Financial and an ex-Ameriprise rep to pay $16,766.21 in compensatory damages to the advisor’s old firm.
It was a narrow win for Ameriprise, who asked the panel for a much broader swath of client information from LPL Financial and the advisor, Adam J. Jurewicz, who left his old firm in February 2024 and is based in a suburb of Charleston, S.C.
In its complaint, Ameriprise had sought to retrieve “physical documents” taken by the advisor as well as Jurewicz turning over “all electronic devices utilized to conduct business for forensic inspection, review, and cleaning” by Ameriprise.
Ameriprise’s complaint relates to LPL Financial and Jurewicz’s “alleged impermissible taking of confidential information and solicitation related to retirement accounts provided by” Ameriprise.
As is customary in FINRA arbitration disputes, the three-person panel did not give an explanation or reasoning for its limited award to Ameriprise in the matter.
Ameriprise and LPL Financial for the past few years have engaged in a financial advice trade war, with Ameriprise filing lawsuits in both the federal courts and FINRA’s arbitration arm over client information and electronic devices.
Ameriprise in federal court in California in 2024 charged that LPL directed advisors to take sensitive information from Ameriprise as they switched to LPL, for example. In that case, a federal judge ruled in May advisors who left Ameriprise for LPL will no longer have to surrender their personal devices for a forensic review over allegations of stolen client data.
A spokesperson for Ameriprise declined to comment about the FINRA arbitration award of $16,766.21 in compensatory damages; an LPL spokesperson also declined to comment.
For decades, big firms like Ameriprise and LPL Financial have used litigation as an attempt to hold onto clients and deter competitors from hiring or recruiting financial advisors.
The rash of lawsuits got so bad that, 20 years ago, a handful of large firms created the “protocol for broker recruiting” to establish guidelines under which a financial advisor leaves one firm and works at another, walking out the door with a limited, reasonable amount of their clients’ information: client name, address, phone number, email address, and account title.
Regardless, Ameriprise has been taking LPL to court recently. Both firms are members of the industry protocol for recruiting.
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