Financial giant UBS Financial Services is asking the courts to prevent Procyon Partners, a new firm in Shelton, Conn., from recruiting any clients from UBS, according to court papers.

The founders of Procyon were formerly employed at UBS in Stamford, Conn., but broke away to form their own company associated with Dynasty Financial Partners.

The problems between UBS and the founders of the new entity date back several months. Phil G. Fiore Jr., one of the founders of Procyon, was fired by UBS last November for, among other things, not reporting outside business activity to UBS as required.

The other members of Procyon who were with UBS until June 2, and who are named in the court papers as defendants along with Fiore, are Jeffrey H. Farrar, Louis Gloria and Thomas M. Gahan. They, along with two people who remained at UBS, formed the FDG Group at UBS.

In the court papers filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut, UBS claims it is being harmed because Procyon is recruiting UBS clients and using proprietary information taken from UBS.

UBS is asking for a temporary injunction against Procyon until the case can be settled by arbitration.

According to the court papers, “It appears Farrar, Gloria and Gahan, while still employed by UBS, conspired with Fiore after his termination to begin improperly competing with UBS.” The four are guilty of a “breach of their contractual non-solicitation and non-disclosure obligations, misappropriation of UBS trade secrets and confidential client information and unfair competition,” the court papers say.

In the court papers, Fiore’s lawyer is quoted as saying Fiore did not solicit UBS clients, and the other defendants say they had a right to solicit clients. Procyon said in an e-mail, “UBS has elected to bring a suit for a restraining order two weeks after the team left although nothing has changed as regarding the facts. … The timing speaks for itself.” 

The news release announcing the launch of the new firm said that while they were at UBS the founders of Procyon managed, on a nondiscretionary and discretionary basis, more than $8 billion in institutional assets and more than $400 million in private wealth assets. The new firm is operating under two separate RIAs to distinguish the investing consulting practice from the personal wealth management group.

UBS declined to comment on the court action.