ST. LOUIS – A group of former Wells Fargo employees in the St. Louis area are being sued by the bank over allegations they violated confidentiality agreements after they left their employment to start their own firm.
Wells Fargo Clearing Services, a division of the bank, filed a lawsuit Oct. 19 at the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri against former employees Brian Pultman, John Biedenstein, Rose Marie Gennaro Gaynor, Megan Badolato, Megan Riggin and their company, Correct Capital Wealth Management, alleging the employees misappropriated confidential client information and violated multiple confidentiality agreements and consumer privacy laws.
The bank said that on Sept. 28, the employees left Wells Fargo together to form Correct Capital. After an internal investigation, it found that on July. 31, the group had registered a web domain and emailed confidential information regarding their clients, including account numbers, on an Excel spreadsheet.
Wells Fargo said in its complaint that, as a member of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), "the protection of financial and personal customer information is a key responsibility and obligation of FINRA member firms and its employees, be they administrative support or registered investment advisers, such as defendants."
The employees had been planning on opening the company for a long time, the bank said.
Wells Fargo is seeking a return of the misappropriated documents, the immediate end of the solicitation activities, and the creation of a trust to gather all the profits and fees made by Correct Capital through Wells Fargo customers.
Wells Fargo is being represented by attorneys Mark Deiermann and Jason Meyer of Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner of St. Louis.
No judge has been assigned to the case yet.
U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri Case number 4:18-cv-01788-AGF