JPMorgan is urging a Nevada federal court to halt a former advisor’s alleged attempts to entice prior clients to join her at Wells Fargo.
The request for an injunction and a temporary restraining order on former Private Client Advisor Lorraine Calcote mirrors numerous other suits filed by JPMorgan in recent years. JPMorgan is asking for the TRO while the dispute is undergoing FINRA arbitration.
According to the suit filed this week, Calcote joined JPMorgan in 2016 and became a private client advisor the following year.
The bank claimed Calcote operated out of a Las Vegas-based branch, assisting and beginning relationships with bank customers (and was not expected to build her own book of business). According to JPMorgan, Calcote worked with about 269 households managing approximately $206 million in client assets.
JPMorgan claimed that on June 4, Calcote called her supervisor to tell him she was resigning. Allegedly, Calcote called a JPMorgan client that same morning to inform him she was now at Wells Fargo and wanted to move his assets there.
The client was concerned about how Calcote had his non-publicly listed cell number, but she purportedly called a week later and offered a $3,500 signing bonus to move to Wells Fargo.
According to JPMorgan, Calcote told the client that the advisor reassigned to his account “hasn’t had a book in 15 years and is basically like working with someone who is brand new” (though this advisor was allegedly Calcote’s direct supervisor from 2016 through 2022).
Nevertheless, JPMorgan said Calcote attracted about 13 households with assets over $24 million to Wells Fargo with her, which JPMorgan claimed violated confidentiality and non-solicitation agreements she signed after joining the bank.
“On information and belief, Wells Fargo provided Calcote with substantial financial inducements to join Wells Fargo, which incentivized her to breach her contractual obligations to JPMorgan,” the complaint read.
According to JPMorgan, Calcote also visited files for hundreds of clients or prospects after business hours in the weeks before her resignation, often looking at the pages “in rapid succession. Her former employer accused her of accessing the files to review and record “certain information for use in her solicitation efforts.”
Representatives from Wells Fargo did not return a request for comment prior to publication.
In the past 18 months, JPMorgan has filed numerous requests for temporary restraining orders against former advisor employees who left for other firms (including Ameriprise, Morgan Stanley, Raymond James and another advisor who departed for Wells Fargo).
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