Raymond James and several of its financial advisors were ordered to pay $4.8 million over a raiding claim brought by rival Baird, according to ThinkAdvisor.
A panel of Financial Industry Regulatory Authority arbitrators issued the award in the matter stemming from Baird’s allegations that Raymond James illegally raided clients and assets. As reported by AdvisorHub, the claim involved the departure of the 17-person Baird team called the Wise Investor Group (WIG) led by Simon R. B. Hamilton and Greg S. Smith, which reportedly managed $2.9 billion in assets and had generated all of their office’s $23 million revenue.
Raymond James, Hamilton and Smith engaged in “concealed efforts to recruit their office subordinates and colleagues” to leave in a “sudden fashion that was designed to ensure that [they] would have an unfair advantage in client solicitation and that Baird would be unable to fairly compete to keep the Baird clients that had been serviced by WIG,” Baird’s complaint contended.
Baird alleged a campaign to wrongfully and illegally “raid” its Reston, Virginia branch office of its business, employees and value, leaving the firm without an ability to fairly compete for the clients it had been serving.
According to the arbitration award, Raymond James is to pay $2.8 million in compensatory damages for violating FINRA’s fair practice rules, close to $1.4 million in compensatory damages for one count of tortious interference, and $350,000 in punitive damages to Baird.
In the decision, Baird was ordered to pay $500,000 to the three brokers based on their counterclaim that their former firm engaged in a campaign to damage and defame them. They alleged that the firm and the advisors “set out on a vicious, multi-pronged, ongoing campaign to damage and defame WIG and its members.”
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