Ameriprise Financial Services has filed a complaint against an advisor and LPL Financial alleging the advisor began trying to poach Ameriprise clients before he moved to LPL last month.

The complaint, filed yesterday in U.S. District Court in Seattle, seeks a temporary restarting order and preliminary injunction against advisor Douglas Kenoyer and LPL that would stop them from recruiting Ameriprise clients pending a Finra arbitration proceeding.

The complaint alleges that “numerous Ameriprise clients have already transferred their accounts to Kenoyer at LPL.”

The complaint did not specify the amount of assets and clients involved, but it did state that at the time of his departure in September, Kenoyer serviced 583 clients with nearly $145 million in AUM.

Both Ameriprise and LPL are signatories to the Protocol for Broker Recruiting, a set of rules that governs recruiting when brokers change firms, the complaint said..

“Kenoyer’s pre- and post-termination behavior has been rife with misconduct and transgressions, supported and encouraged by LPL,” the complaint said.

In particular, the complaint alleged that Kenoyer improperly solicited his Ameriprise clients to join him at LPL prior to his actually departure and continues to do so using confidential Ameriprise documents.

“Full compliance with the protocol is a pre-requisite for a registered representative to avail himself or herself of its protection,” the complaint said. “While Kenoyer claimed the protections of the protocol, he had already violated the protocol by pre-soliciting clients and taking confidential documents and information, rendering the protections of the protocol moot and inapplicable.”

Kenoyer, who lives in Stanwood, Wash., was dually registered with Ameriprise beginning in April 2006 until September of this year, when his registration changed to LPL. While at Ameriprise, in June 2021, he launched his own firm, Cascadia Wealth Advisors, in Arlington, Wash., according to his Facebook page.

In June 2022, Kenoyer signed an independent advisor business franchise agreement with Ameriprise, according to the complaint, which prohibited a departing advisor from soliciting Ameriprise clients for a year following the separation and spelled out that client names, addresses and data are the property of Ameriprise.

At the same time, Kenoyer acquired the entire book of business of a retiring Ameriprise advisor through an internal client transfer program, the complaint said. That book put Kenoyer in contact with additional 1,031 new clients with nearly $134 million in assets under management, the complaint said. It’s unclear how many of those clients ended up signing on with Kenoyer.

According to the complaint, Kenoyer began soliciting his clients several months before resigning from Ameriprise, allegedly using the firm’s customer relationship manager software to record notes as to a client’s willingness or reluctance to join him.

On June 4, he wrote “don’t think they will come” in one client’s record; on July 1, “they really don’t want to move” in another; and on August 9, “not coming with me” in a third, the complaint said.

LPL did not immediately respond to a request for comment.