Photo by James Sanna | Banker & Tradesman Staff/file
Citizens Bank has sued online lender SoFi, claiming it “essentially eliminated its market presence” in Connecticut after hiring away several mortgage employees.
The lawsuit, filed in New Haven federal court Wednesday, claims SoFi poached at least nine members of its Connecticut mortgage lending operation earlier this year, who allegedly took reams of client lists, sales leads and other data Citizens described as “trade secrets” with them on their way out the door.
The employees were responsible for “over $400 million in closed loans that generated approximately $5 million in revenue in the year leading up to SoFi’s unlawful raid,” Citizens lawsuit states, adding later that the departures amounted to “70% of Connecticut’s producers who were responsible for closing over 80% of Citizens’ Connecticut mortgages during the preceding year.”
SoFi did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment and has not yet filed a response to Citizens’ civil complaint in court.
Citizens’ lawsuit cites internal “forensic analysis” to claim SoFi “strategically orchestrated” the near-simultaneous resignations of nine employees from Citizens’ Connecticut office in June, nearly all of whom were loan originators and other staff on the team of its then-market manager Michael Daversa.
“This coordinated targeting was designed to cause maximum disruption to Citizens’ Connecticut office and mortgage department,” the lawsuit states.
The nine former Citizens mortgage employees joined SoFi shortly afterwards with similar or identical titles, the lawsuit says.
Daversa and a former Connecticut manager, Michael Ordille, also allegedly approached other Citizens employees about jumping ship, the bank claims.
Citizens said the employees named in the case had signed agreements with the bank when they started work that barred any such activity for a year following their departure from the company.
The lawsuit claims several of the nine employees sent numerous internal documents to their personal emails or printed them out prior to leaving. Documents identified in the lawsuit included client lists sometimes containing credit scores, social security numbers and gross commissions earned for “hundreds” of Citizens borrowers who could be refinance targets, and lists of Realtors.
Two more Citizens mortgage employees in Connecticut left for SoFi within 10 days of the mass-resignation, also allegedly taking “a significant amount of Citizens’ confidential client information and proprietary data” with them, the suit states.
The departures followed similar ones in Citizens’ Texas mortgage-lending division, the lawsuit states
The Citizens lawsuit maintains that the alleged moves were also illegal attempts to “steal Citizens’ current and prospective business for the benefit of SoFi.”
The lawsuit seeks unspecified monetary damages and attorney’s fees, and a court order barring SoFi from keeping or using the information its hires allegedly took with them.
