UBS sues two ex-advisers claiming they took customer data to Wells Fargo

A UBS AG brokerage unit sued two former financial advisers in Chicago, claiming they took confidential trade secret information including customer account data to competitor Wells Fargo Advisers LLC. Named as defendants in the lawsuit filed Wednesday by UBS Financial Services Inc. are David Kinnear and Kathleen Bakas, who allegedly resigned earlier this week ago to join the Wells Fargo & Co. unit. One full-time and one part-time UBS employee, all part of Kinnear's wealth-management group, went with them, according to the complaint. “Led by Kinnear, the team serviced accounts that generated more than $3.7 million in revenues for UBS over the past 12 months of the defendants' employment,” UBS alleged. The New York-based brokerage unit of Zurich-based UBS seeks a court order blocking the defendants and any Wells Fargo representative from soliciting any UBS client Kinnear or Bakas had advised while there, preventing the disclosure of any proprietary UBS information and directing its return. UBS also seeks expedited arbitration of its claims through the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority. Ancel Martinez, a spokesman for San Francisco-based Wells Fargo, which isn't a party to the suit, couldn't immediately comment on the case. Kinnear and Bakas didn't immediately respond to e-mail messages seeking comment on the lawsuit. --Bloomberg News--