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.”