Edelman Monetary Engines filed a lawsuit Friday towards Mariner Wealth Advisors, accusing the smaller RIA of luring away Edelman’s monetary advisors, defaming the agency and incentivizing them to interrupt employment contracts and steal commerce secrets and techniques to solicit their purchasers.
The go well with claims Kansas-based Mariner has, to this point, recruited ten Edelman advisors, prompted “a whole bunch” of damaged employment contracts, and stole 851 former Edelman purchasers representing some $621 million in belongings. Mariner manages $114 billion.
The go well with accuses Mariner of an “ongoing scheme” to recruit Edelman monetary planners with “high-power stress techniques.” That features allegedly telling Edelman planners that “everyone seems to be leaving” the $245 billion RIA, it’s a “sinking ship” and so they’ll be out of a job in the event that they select to remain.
“In an effort to foment anxiousness and stress Edelman staff to just accept a place with Mariner, Mariner brokers have additionally falsely said that, due to Edelman’s allegedly failing enterprise ‘everyone seems to be leaping overboard’ and have rhetorically requested ‘do you actually need to be the final planner standing at that agency,'” in line with the defamation cost contained within the lawsuit.
The statements are “patently false,” in line with Edelman’s criticism.
Representatives of Mariner Wealth Advisors couldn’t be reached previous to publication.
In its criticism, Edelman claims its enterprise mannequin is “distinctive” in that it gives its monetary planners with prospects procured by spending “tens of millions” on advertising campaigns, together with by means of podcasts, webinars, publications, and newsletters.
“Mariner lacks the assets, infrastructure, and talent to make the tens of tens of millions of {dollars} in investments Edelman makes every year on figuring out purchasers with the power to speculate. Mariner has due to this fact determined to free-ride off Edelman’s multimillion-dollar funding by purloining Edelman’s commerce secrets and techniques, goodwill, and consumer relationships,” in line with the go well with.
The go well with cites eight former Edelman monetary planners who had been recruited by Mariner at numerous factors over the previous two years; in every case, Edelman claims Mariner prompted them to violate consumer confidentiality agreements. They had been requested for purchasers’ AUM to create compensation packages for the advisors and solicitation plans for the purchasers, then incentivized to contact and recruit these purchasers after leaving Edelman for Mariner.
In lots of instances, Edelman mentioned Mariner requested the advisors to offer their employment agreements with the bigger agency to determine find out how to “finest defend a lawsuit” for breaking the employment covenants.
