A former coworker of mine left the RIA I work for to start is own RIA. Before he left he took our entire client list without our permission and mailed out a letter after his termination trying to solicit our current clients to move to his new RIA. I know doing this is a clear violation of the CFA standards of practice, but this person isn’t a CFA Charterholder/ CFA member. My question is, is what he did illegal and does my RIA have any recourse against him?
Looks like you can call the regulators.
How do you know he took your client list? He could argue that he recreated it from publicly available information, which is completely fine and he did not solicit clients prior to the termination. What kind of clause did you put in his contract regarding this? Any type of non-compete?
He admitted through his lawyers that he took the client list because he thinks he has the right to contact our clients. Don’t know what exactly is in his contract, I wasn’t involved in that, I have only been working at the RIA for about six months, but he was supposed to sign a non-compete agreement before he left, but he refused to sign it. (I know, not the best practice to have someone sign that when they want to leave, but I was not involved in that)