UBS is suing a $1.1 billion advisory team that left the wirehouse for RBC last month, claiming they’re breaking non-solicitation vows.
UBS filed a request for a temporary restraining order on Friday in Michigan federal court against advisors Jonathan Modiano, Adam Jones and Mark Steinberg, who lead the BLS Financial Group in Bloomfield Hills, Mich.
When the team joined RBC, the firm claimed it’d help the bank bolster its presence among high-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth clients in the Detroit market. Still, in the complaint, UBS claimed the advisors planned their resignations to coincide with a physical office move to “provide an avenue through which they could remove physical documents undetected.”
In the complaint, UBS claimed the trio “deliberately orchestrated a calculated scheme to unlawfully solicit UBS’s most lucrative clients, prioritizing those with the highest asset value in a blatant attempt to undermine UBS’s business interest in breach of their contractual and legal obligations to UBS.”
According to SEC records, Modiano and Jones have been with UBS since first registering in the industry in 2003 and 2011, respectively. Steinberg registered in 2000 and spent five years at Merrill Lynch before joining UBS.
According to the UBS complaint, the advisors were part of a program that allowed them to inherit clients from retiring financial advisors. These “legacy” advisors received payments for five years after retirement, calculated by revenues from the inherited accounts.
According to UBS, these advisors signed non-solicitation agreements for clients and UBS employees, with time frames ranging from a year after the end of employment to the end of 2027. According to UBS, “virtually all” of the advisors’ UBS clients were covered by the non-solicitation restrictions.
RBC did not respond to a request for comment.
On Sept. 25, the three advisors allegedly resigned en masse, “using identical resignation notices” referring UBS to an attorney, and immediately went to work for RBC. According to UBS, since the resignation, the advisors have been soliciting legacy clients to move their accounts to RBC (and UBS suspects the solicitation began before their resignation).
UBS alleged that the wirehouse received “multiple” calls from the advisors with clients requesting materials to help transfer assets hours after the resignations. Additionally, UBS received transfer requests for the advisors’ largest client, a legacy account trust worth over $270 million, four days after the advisors resigned.
“Given the fact that the transfer of these assets required multiple approvals and sign-offs before such a decision could be made, the timing indicates (the advisors) began soliciting this client well before their sudden resignations on September 25, 2025,” the complaint read.
UBS claims that, as of the filing, it had received transfer notices for clients representing over $300 million in assets.
UBS is asking the court to restrain the advisors pending FINRA arbitration “from violating the client non-solicitation covenants” or “disclosing or disseminating UBS’s confidential information.”
