CIBC Private Wealth Advisors Inc., an arm of giant Canadian bank CIBC, is suing two Illinois advisors who resigned in April intending to join Morgan Stanley. The two oversaw some $1.5 billion in client assets under management.

CIBC said that Erin Dickes and Evy Stein-Keller broke the terms of their contracts when they said in April they were leaving their jobs. CIBC said Dickes sent out an email from a company address announcing her departure, which violated her agreement not to contact clients during her notice period. Though Dickes honored her agreement to give 90 days’ notice when she tendered he resignation in April, Stein-Keller did not, CIBC claims, and resigned immediately, breaching her contract.

Although Dickes' email anouncement did not mention Morgan Stanley,

A junior team member, Matthew Gerth, also resigned, though he is not named in the suit.

The suit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, where the bank said the two advisors signed their agreements. It seeks both a restraining order and injunctive relief against Dickes and Stein-Keller that would keep them from soliciting clients.

At the end of her CIBC tenure, the bank said, Dickes was the primary relationship manager for 200 clients holding some $1.2 billion in assets under management. Stein-Keller had 30 relationships with clients holding $350 million in assets, according to the suit.

CIBC said it paid Dickes about $2.4 million during the year before her resignation and paid Stein-Keller $190,000.

Specifically, Dickes's email to clients said the following, according to the CIBC complaint:

"Dear Friends, It has been a pleasure working with you and your families over the past many years. I am writing to let you know that I intend to resign today from CIBC. It is my understanding that CIBC wants me to provide 90 days’ notice of my intended resignation prior to commencing employment with my new firm, and I intend to honor CIBC’s request. I am grateful for the opportunity to be of service to you, and hope that CIBC will permit me to assist you during the transition. Sincerely, Erin."

The bank complains that by sending this email, she violated the agreement not to contact clients, and that she did so using the bank's email server. Also, she did not merely say she was leaving but affirmatively stated she was joining another firm, CIBC said.

Dickes and Stein-Keller joined CIBC when it purchased Chicago-based private wealth management firm Geneva Advisors in 2017. At the time, Geneva came over with $8.4 billion in assets and was focused on high-net-worth individuals, according to a press release. CIBC, a Canadian financial behemoth, paid more than a $100 million. The deal was originally to be paid 25% in cash and 75% in the company’s common shares.

CIBC argues Dickes and Stein-Keller got most of their clients from CIBC, not on their own—and that a big source of the business the bank steered to them came from its referral program with Charles Schwab. If clients actually moved business to Morgan Stanley, CIBC says it would owe Schwab contractual fees. The two had a similar Schwab program at Geneva that contributed to their client list. CIBC added that it also assigned Dickes and Stein-Keller the clients of Geneva’s founder James Arado after he died in 2018 a year after joining CIBC.

“In sum, Dickes and Stein-Keller did not independently originate the vast majority of their business with the clients they had at CIBC, but obtained them as a result of referral arrangements with Schwab that CIBC paid for either directly or indirectly through purchasing Geneva Advisors or by CIBC’s decision to reassign Arado’s clients to them upon his death,” the suit said.

CIBC spokespeople declined to comment. Lawyers for Dickes and Stein-Keller could be reached by press time.

However, in a letter submitted to the court in early May, attorney Michael Grenert, speaking for Dickes and Stein-Keller, said that the two have not taken any proprietary information from CIBC nor provided it to a third party and that they are abiding by the obligations of their notice period.

“As a matter of professional courtesy, my clients stated their intention to abide by their notice period and fulfill their reasonable obligations and duties to CIBC during this window,” said Grenert in early May. “Do not confuse this show of good faith with an admission that such restrictions are appropriate or enforceable. FINRA policies ... emphasize the importance of customer choice in financial professionals. Inherent in this policy preference is the right of FINRA associated persons to leave one FINRA member firm and join another without delay.”

Grenert also wrote that he objected to CIBC’s demands that Dickes and Stein-Keller continue to work in the CIBC offices.

“I am troubled by your [CIBC’s] assertions that my clients are required to report to work in their respective offices during their notice period. As at-will employees, they are entitled to cease working for CIBC whenever they so choose, and CIBC can neither force them to work nor seek relief based on any decision not to come into the office," he said.

Also, he said, “it presents a clear conflict for my clients to be in the CIBC offices where they are being asked to interact with customers in such a manner that the very nature of their interaction risks tacitly conveying misleading information to such customers regarding my clients’ employment status. It has even been suggested to Ms. Dickes by CIBC management that she could not truthfully respond to client inquiries during her notice period.”