A North White Plains financial firm claims that a former employee stole clients when she moved to a competing firm.
Aspire Advisors is demanding $500,000 from Sandra Rose of New Canaan, Connecticut, in a lawsuit filed April 9 in U.S. District Court, White Plains.
“Ms. Rose has aggressively worked to steal the company”™s clients,” the complaint states, “and through her efforts has diverted at least $4.6 million in assets under management from Aspire to her new employer, Prudential Financial.”
Prudential is not named as a defendant, and Rose”™s attorney, Brian A. Carlis, denied the allegations.
“Ms. Rose has not initiated contact with any client since the resignation of her employment from Aspire Advisors,” he said in a March 3 letter in reply to cease and desist letters from Aspire. In accepting phone calls from former clients, he said, “there is absolutely nothing inappropriate about answering client questions.”
Aspire was founded in 2010 by John J. Hamilton, according to its U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission disclosure brochure. As of March 31, it had about 210 clients, mostly high net worth individuals, and was managing $141.5 million in assets.
Rose was hired in 2016, according to the complaint, to pitch services to prospective clients and ensure that clients were pleased with the firm”™s services. She was promoted in 2019 to senior financial adviser.
Aspire says Rose was required to sign a confidentiality agreement to protect confidential client information and the firm”™s business models and strategies.
The agreement also prohibited her from contacting clients, Aspire claims, encouraging clients to take their business elsewhere, or even telling clients that she was no longer employed by Aspire, for 18 months after leaving the firm.
Last June, the company discovered that Rose had transferred company phone calls to her personal phone, according to the complaint, in violation of company policy. She was warned to stop.
After Rose resigned in February, Aspire says, it discovered that last May she had transferred confidential client information to her personal email account.
In the weeks following her resignation, Rose allegedly contacted at least 13 Aspire clients by telephone, email and written cards, and discussed moving accounts to Prudential.
Carlis refuted the allegations
“Ms. Rose has not and will not solicit clients she serviced while employed by the company,” he said in the March 3 letter.
“Ms. Rose will answer her telephone and she will answer questions posed by her clients. She will continue to advise clients that she is not permitted to ask them to move their accounts. Ms. Rose has not utilized company confidential information and trade secret information for any purpose.”
Rose does not believe she has any confidential information, he said, but she will review her personal email account and delete any she finds.
It does not matter who initiated a contact, the complaint states, because the confidentiality agreement disallows any contacts in any form with Aspire clients, after she leaves the firm.
“Carlis”™ admission that Ms. Rose is communicating with company clients is an admission she has breached the agreement,” the complaint states.
Aspire also accuses Rose of misappropriation of trade secrets, unjust enrichment and unfair competition.
The firm is demanding $500,000 in damages and is asking the court to order her to stop using Aspire”™s confidential information and to return or destroy any trade secrets and confidential information she has.
Aspire is represented by Manhattan attorneys Jordan D. Mamorsky and David G. Gabor.
