JPMorgan Chase is bringing another former advisor to court, claiming he broke non-solicitation vows in his employment agreements with the firm when he left to join Morgan Stanley.
According to the suit filed in federal court in Florida this week, Brian Krauthamer was a private client advisor operating out of a JPMorgan bank branch office in Boca Raton, Fla. However, on May 1, he resigned and shortly afterward joined Morgan Stanley.
JPMorgan is asking for a temporary restraining order to stop Krauthamer’s alleged attempts to entice his former clients to join him at his new firm.
According to FINRA, Krauthamer first entered the industry in 2006 at Ameriprise, then joined Chase Investment Services in 2010 and officially registered with JPMorgan Chase two years later.
JPMorgan claimed that Krauthamer had signed restrictive covenants prohibiting him from soliciting the firm’s clients for one year after his employment ended and requiring him to maintain the confidentiality of client information.
After becoming a Select Private Client Advisor in 2024, Krauthamer moved from Southampton, N.Y., to Florida, according to reports. The bank claimed that, in his role as an advisor, he was introduced to existing bank clients and therefore had built a book of business with JPMorgan’s assistance.
The bank claims that since joining Morgan Stanley, Krauthamer was soliciting former clients to move their business to the wirehouse, in some instances calling them on their personal cell phones. The bank claims those phone numbers were just part of the confidential information the advisor took with him.
In one case, Krauthamer told clients that Morgan Stanley offered “a robust opportunity” with more offerings than JPMorgan, while another client felt he was “pushy” about requesting an appointment. At least four other clients told JPMorgan about Krauthamer’s solicitation attempts, the bank claims.
JPMorgan says that about 90 households with assets totaling about $161 million had opted to move their business with Krauthamer to Morgan Stanley (the firm believed that at the time he resigned, Krauthamer worked with about 244 households with about $229 million in assets under supervision).
Morgan Stanley declined to comment for this story. An attorney for Krauthamer did not return a request for comment prior to publication.
JPMorgan has frequently brought former advisors to court, accusing them of similar violations of their employment contracts with the firm. Bank branch advisors often have more stringent terms in their employment contracts than others, since they are not typically responsible for building their own books of business.
In January, JPMorgan filed a suit against another advisor, alleging that Kevin Sercia solicited clients after joining LPL Financial and setting up a new office in a building “literally across the parking lot” from his former JPMorgan bank branch in Stuart, Fla.
Earlier this week, JPMorgan Chase’s Head of Consumer Banking, Marianne Lake, announced her retirement. The move reshuffled the potential successors to Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon.
In response, the firm named Troy Rohrbaugh and Doug Petno as co-presidents, putting them in the running to potentially succeed Dimon if and when he steps down. Rohrbaugh is replacing Lake, while Petno will oversee the firm’s commercial and investment bank.
The duo received $30 million one-time retention awards, while Chief Operating Officer Jenn Piepszak and Mary Erdoes, who runs the firm’s asset and wealth management division, each received $20 million. The titles of the latter two executives were unchanged in this week’s reshuffling.
