Mariner Wealth Advisors Lawsuit: No-Poach Settlement and Claims

Mariner Wealth Advisors has been named in or filed several major lawsuits in recent years, the largest being a $25.5 million class-action settlement in July 2025 over an illegal no-poach agreement with two other Kansas City-area financial firms. The Overland Park-based registered investment adviser has also fought trade-secret cases with competing firms, been sued for fraud by an advisor whose practice it acquired, and disclosed a data breach affecting nearly 9,000 people.

The No-Poach Class Action and $25.5 Million Settlement

Two former Tortoise Capital employees, Jakob Tobler and Michelle McNitt, filed a class-action lawsuit in February 2024 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Kansas against Mariner, American Century Investment Management, and Tortoise Capital Advisors. The case, Tobler et al. v. 1248 Holdings, LLC et al. (2:24-CV-02068-EFM-GEB), alleged that the three firms secretly agreed between March 2014 and March 2018 not to solicit, recruit, or hire each other’s employees, suppressing wages and blocking career advancement for workers in the Kansas City wealth-management labor market.¹

The complaint claimed senior executives had “boasted among themselves and to other defendants about the money they would save and did save through the unlawful agreement at the expense of their workers.”¹ Reporting indicated the pact took hold after a senior American Century employee left for Mariner in 2008 and recruited other American Century staff to follow him.²

In July 2025, the three firms agreed to settle for a combined $25.5 million.³ All three firms denied the conspiracy as alleged, and the court did not rule on the merits.⁴

Who Qualified and How Payments Worked

The settlement class covered roughly 5,000 current and former employees who held non-executive roles at the three firms between January 1, 2012, and December 31, 2020.⁵ Board members, C-suite executives, and employees who lived outside the U.S. for the entire class period were excluded.⁶

No claim form was required. Each class member received a minimum of $50, with the balance distributed proportionally to compensation during the class period and capped at $250,000.³ Payments were mailed on February 2, 2026. Class members who did not receive a check had until March 2, 2026, to inquire.⁴

The DOJ Non-Prosecution Agreement Behind the Case

The class action followed a DOJ Antitrust Division investigation. On May 15, 2023, Mariner signed a non-prosecution agreement admitting that its employees, including a senior-level executive, had conspired with a competitor to suppress labor-market competition by entering a market-allocation agreement.⁷ The DOJ treated the arrangement as a per se violation of Section 1 of the Sherman Antitrust Act.

The agreement required Mariner to fund a $1 million victim compensation pool administered by a DOJ-selected claims administrator, waive and stop enforcing non-compete, non-solicitation, and non-interference provisions that restricted employee mobility, update contracts with recruiting agencies so those agencies were not barred from soliciting Mariner’s competitors’ employees, and maintain a formal antitrust compliance and training program.⁷ American Century had reached its own DOJ non-prosecution agreement in March 2021 and paid $1.5 million to current and former employees.⁸

Edelman Financial Engines Trade-Secrets Suit

Edelman Financial Engines sued Mariner in Kansas federal court in 2023, alleging Mariner misappropriated trade secrets by hiring 10 Edelman financial planners between 2021 and 2023 who took at least 851 clients and more than $621 million in assets with them.⁹ Edelman claimed Mariner CEO Marty Bicknell personally solicited one of its advisors, Michael Horne, in 2021; Bicknell acknowledged the conversation but details were not disclosed.¹⁰

On June 9, 2026, U.S. District Court Judge Holly L. Teeter granted summary judgment for Mariner. She held that client lists recreated from memory and public information did not qualify as trade secrets under the Defend Trade Secrets Act, and that Mariner had received specific client data such as account balances, fees, and investment positions only from clients who chose to move firms on their own. Adopting Edelman’s theory, she wrote, would create a “slippery slope” that could “potentially federalize every restrictive covenant case.”⁹

The ruling also criticized Edelman’s counsel for “improper briefing tactics,” including misrepresenting evidence and failing to cite the record properly. The judge called an incident involving Edelman corporate representative Bryan Clark, who used an unauthorized errata sheet to alter deposition testimony, the “most egregious misstep.”⁹ Edelman said it “respectfully disagrees” with the decision and intends to keep pursuing its claims.¹⁰

Mariner v. Savvy Advisors

Mariner filed its own trade-secrets suit in June 2024 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio against Savvy Advisors, a startup RIA, and three former Mariner advisors: Brad Morgan, Nate Kunkel, and Timothy Gerard. Mariner alleged they took roughly $60 million in client assets after joining Savvy in mid-May 2024, that one advisor had downloaded confidential client information from cloud storage, and that Savvy had targeted advisors with portable books of business to acquire clients from Procter & Gamble employees and their families.¹¹

On July 19, 2024, Judge Douglas R. Cole granted a partial temporary restraining order barring the three advisors from soliciting clients they had served at Mariner. The court rejected Mariner’s broader definition of solicitation and specified that responding to unprompted questions from former clients did not qualify. The court also found no proof Brad Morgan had forwarded protected trade secrets, only that he had transferred personal calendar entries.¹¹ Mariner voluntarily dismissed the case in September 2025.¹²

Hyre v. Mariner: Fraud Claim From an Acquired Advisor

James Hyre and his firm Hyre Personal Wealth Advisors sued Mariner in February 2026 in U.S. District Court in Kansas. The complaint alleges fraud, breach of contract, negligent misrepresentation, computer abuse, and tortious interference with business relationships.¹³

The dispute traces back to Mariner’s April 2025 acquisition of Hyre’s practice for $39 million, structured as $25 million in equity, $1 million in cash at closing, and up to $13 million in management incentives over three years.¹³ Hyre alleges he was induced to sell by false promises of autonomy and support, that Mariner then failed to pay promised compensation, interfered with his management of client assets, wiped personal data from his laptop when he was terminated in October 2025, and made threats regarding his FINRA U5 filing. The complaint describes Mariner’s conduct as “willful and malicious misappropriation” of Hyre’s book of business.¹⁴ Hyre is also asking the court to void the non-competition agreement he signed at closing. A Mariner spokesperson said the firm does not comment on pending litigation.

The 2026 Data Breach Disclosure

In May 2026, Mariner disclosed a data breach affecting 8,995 individuals. A criminal third party accessed cloud applications used by three Mariner associates between November 21, 2025, and January 13, 2026, and Mariner first detected the intrusion on November 24, 2025.¹⁵ Exposed information included names, account numbers, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, driver’s license numbers, other government identification, financial information, and medical information.¹⁶

Mariner offered affected individuals 24 months of complimentary credit monitoring through Cyberscout, a TransUnion company, with a 90-day window to enroll from the date of the notification letter.¹⁶ As of mid-2026, no class-action lawsuit had been filed in connection with the breach.¹⁵

1
ThinkAdvisor. Lawsuit: Mariner, American Century Made Secret No-Poach Deal
2
HR Morning. No-Poach Recruiting Settlement
3
AdvisorHub. Mariner, Two Others Settle Collusion Case for Nearly $26 Million
4
Mariner ACI Settlement. Tobler et al. v. 1248 Holdings Settlement
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ThinkAdvisor. Mariner, Other Firms Agree to $25.5M Class-Action Settlement
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Mariner ACI Settlement. Settlement FAQ
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DOJ / PACER. Mariner Non-Prosecution Agreement
8
KCUR. American Century Settles Federal Antitrust Charges for $1.5 Million
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Financial Advisor Magazine. Judge’s Dismissal of Edelman’s Suit Against Mariner Included a Tongue Lashing
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Wealthmanagement.com. Edelman Loses Mariner Trade Secret Suit
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Financial Advisor Magazine. Mariner Wins Restraining Order Against Ex-Advisors With Limitations
12
CourtListener. Mariner Wealth Advisors, LLC v. Savvy Advisors, Inc.
13
ThinkAdvisor. Firm Acquired by Mariner Alleges Fraud, Breach of Contract
14
InvestmentNews. Mariner and Advisor in Fight Over Clients After Contentious Deal
15
InvestmentNews. Mariner Discloses Cloud Breach Impacting Nearly 9,000 Individuals
16
Massachusetts Attorney General. Mariner Wealth Advisors Data Breach Notification