An industry lawyer is questioning JPMorgan’s decision to file a lawsuit during the holiday week against a former private client advisor accused of trying to poach clients for an industry rival.
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Angel Ayala became the latest subject of a JPMorgan legal action targeting a former private client advisor when he was sued on Monday in U.S. district court in New Jersey. Ayala resigned from his position at a JPMorgan Chase bank branch in Franklin Park, New Jersey, on Dec. 10 and immediately joined Wells Fargo, according to JPMorgan’s suit.
Ayala’s lawyer, Thomas Lewis of the Stevens & Lee law firm in Princeton, New Jersey, said he first learned of the suit on Tuesday. He said he and Ayala “are disappointed that JPMorgan chose to file a lawsuit two days before Christmas Day, when most people are spending time with family.”
Angel Ayala, formerly of JPMorgan, is welcomed to Wells Fargo Advisors by executive director and senior area manager Raul Toro.
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“We are reviewing the lawsuit and look forward to defending the allegations lodged by JPMorgan,” he added.
JPMorgan declined to comment for this article. Wells Fargo, which was not named as a defendant in the suit, also declined to comment.
Following a familiar playbook for JPMorgan
JPMorgan has been a frequent filer of lawsuits against its former private client advisors, whom it often accuses of trying to poach clients that they couldn’t have obtained without the firm’s resources. When Ayala was at JPMorgan, according to the suit, he was managing roughly $282 million for 530 households or clients, “the vast majority of which were either pre-existing JPMorgan clients at the time they were assigned to Defendant, or were developed by Defendant at JPMorgan.”
“Unfortunately, it appears that Defendant’s improper solicitation efforts have proved successful, as at least 10 JPMorgan households with assets totaling approximately $15.9 million already have transferred from JPMorgan to Defendant at Wells Fargo,” the suit says.
JPMorgan’s lawsuits against former private client advisors generally accuse them of violating employment agreements that bar them from soliciting the business of their former clients for one year after leaving. The advisors are also alleged to have not done enough to protect private client information.
The suits all ask federal judges to impose temporary restraining orders barring the former client advisors from trying to win their former clients’ business until a resolution can be reached. With or without a restraining order, all the disputes will eventually go before an arbitration panel administered by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, the broker-dealer industry’s self-regulator. Like other former private client advisors sued by JPMorgan, Ayala is accused of breach of contract, misappropriation of trade secrets and breach of fiduciary duty and the duty of loyalty, among other violations.
The targets of JPMorgan’s other recent suits against private client advisors include:
Henry Robert Gleckler IV, a private client advisor who left JPMorgan in November to join Morgan Stanley in Garden City, New York;
Matthew Madera, a private client advisor who left JPMorgan in October to join Genesis Wealth in the Chicago suburb of Bolingbrook, Illinois;
Brandon M. Love, who left in August to join UBS in the Detroit suburb of West Bloomfield, Michigan;
Laura Sullivan, who left in May to join Morgan Stanley in Farmington Hills, Michigan; and
Matthew McCrea, who left in April to join Wells Fargo in Las Vegas.
Nonsolicitation clauses at center of JPMorgan’s claims
In JPMorgan’s latest suit, the firm notes that Ayala agreed in two contracts to nonsolicitation clauses mandating year-long bans on trying to drum up business from ex-clients. He signed the first contract in August 2010, when he first joined JPMorgan. The second came in June 2019, after he had moved over from the banking side of the firm to first become a financial advisor and then a private client advisor.
JPMorgan makes a big distinction between advisors who are often responsible for developing their own client relationships and private client advisors, whose books of business are often built from referrals through the firm’s bank.
In a passage almost identical to language found in suits against other former private client advisors, JPMorgan contends: “Ayala sat at his desk at a JPMorgan Chase bank branch and was introduced to hundreds of existing bank clients (with or without investment accounts) to offer and provide access to investment opportunities through Chase Wealth Management. As a Financial Advisor and a Private Client Advisor, Ayala was not expected to engage in cold calling or attempt to build a client base independent of referrals from JPMorgan.”
When advisors move from one firm to another, their ability to bring clients with them is often governed by a voluntary industry-spanning pact known as the Broker Protocol. Both JPMorgan and Wells Fargo belong to the protocol, which generally allows advisors to transfer client names, addresses, phone numbers, e-mail addresses and account titles without fear of legal consequences.
But JPMorgan has long maintained the protocol applies only to advisors who’ve built books of business through their own efforts. Private client advisors, because of their heavy reliance on bank referrals, are excluded, according to JPMorgan’s interpretation.
Also as in other legal disputes with former private client advisors, almost all of them filed by Anthony Paduano of the Paduano Weintraub law firm in New York, JPMorgan’s latest suit notes an unusual flurry of activity with client accounts shortly before Ayala left, some of it in the early hours of the morning. On Oct. 27, for instance, Ayala accessed JPMorgan’s computer systems to look at 25 client profiles between 2:34 a.m. and 3:40 a.m., according to the suit.
The activity continued right up to the eve of his departure. Two days before he left, according to the suit, he accessed 63 client profiles and then an additional 84 a day later.
“There is no legitimate business reason why Ayala would need to access so many client profiles, especially those he did in rapid succession in the middle of the night,” the suit says. “Moreover, given that Ayala resigned on December 10, 2025 in the morning (which he then confirmed via email at 9:46 a.m.), there is no legitimate business reason why Ayala should have been accessing more than 90 client profiles in rapid succession starting at 3:25 p.m. the day before.”
