Former Barclays wealth management executive wins $2.7 million arb award from former firm

A former top executive at Barclays Capital Inc. won a $2.7 million Finra arbitration award, stemming from a dispute over compensation he claimed Barclays owed him when it sold its wealth management group to Stifel Financial Corp. in 2015.

Now head of investment products and services at Stifel, Thomas W. Lee alleged in his 2016 claim against Barclays Capital breach of contract, breach of implied contract and other allegations, according to the award.

Mr. Lee had originally requested $3.7 million in damages and attorneys’ fees in the claim. According to his LinkedIn profile, Mr. Lee was head of Barclays Wealth and Investment Management for the Americas at the time of the sale.

In mid-2015, Barclays had about 180 financial advisers in the U.S. managing $56 billion in total client assets. Barclays had bought the unit with other Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. operations in 2008 during the financial crisis, and was faulted by regulators last year for inadequate internal controls there.

The details are sparse in the award, which was issued by a Financial Industry Regulatory Authority Inc. panel on Friday. But Mr. Lee’s attorney, Jonathan Sack, said that Barclays Capital reneged on his client’s contract and did not pay him fairly once Stifel completed the acquisition of the Barclays unit in December 2015.

“Barclays breached its agreement, and the arbitration panel saw through that,” Mr. Sack said.

Mr. Lee “was a key man,” Mr. Sack said. “He was running the entire [wealth management] group, and if he didn’t act as the pied piper, the deal wouldn’t have gotten done. He was an integral part of that. As a senior leader he spent many months selling and coaxing [advisers] to move to Stifel, a regional firm.”

“Barclays is disappointed by the decision and believes the award is unfounded,” said spokesman Andrew Smith.

Related Topics: Barclays Global Investors, Financial Industry Regulatory Authority