Federal Courts Dismiss Fiduciary Class Action Against JPMorgan

Today's BrokeAndBroker.com Blog examines a Class Action lawsuit brought on behalf of JPMorgan financial advisory clients. It's an interesting bit of litigation involving allegations that JPMorgan pressured its financial advisors to engage in what comes off as akin to a pump-and-dump of its proprietary mutual funds and investments. The lawsuit raises many troubling questions about fiduciary duties and dredges up the ongoing debate about whether checking off the Suitability box when recommending investments is enough. The problem for the Plaintiffs -- the formidable challenges -- is whether they can plead their proposed Class Action in a manner that will allow the case to proceed.

According to Plaintiffs, Defendants pushed and incentivized their financial advisors to put Defendants' own financial interests ahead of those of their clients. (Id. ¶ 3.) In particular, Defendants required their financial advisors to strongly push and sell Defendants' own proprietary mutual funds and investments, as opposed to those funds and investments managed by third parties. (Id.) As a result of these practices, Defendants were able to substantially grow their assets and collect management fees, including the fees from JPMorgan-affiliated funds and investments themselves, as well as the fees from JPMorgan-affiliated entities that managed and provided services to the JPMorgan funds and investments. (Id.)

Defendants utilized a generous bonus structure to incentivize and pressure their financial advisors to steer or "switch" clients into JPMorgan proprietary funds and investments. (Id.¶¶ 5, 7.) These switches were done for no other reason than to maximize revenues for Defendants' self-interested reasons and were contrary to client interests and not the result of research and analysis performed by the financial advisors. (Id. ¶ 7.) In contrast, financial advisors were not rewarded with high bonuses based on client performance or for placing clients in non-JPMorgan- sponsored investments. (Id.¶ 7.)

Plaintiffs aver that Defendants breached contractual and fiduciary duties to act in their clients' best interests. Plaintiffs point to Defendants' statements about their fiduciary and contractual duties to clients that appear on JPMorgan's website and also in documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC"), as admissions by the Defendants regarding the nature of Defendants' obligations. Plaintiffs specifically disclaim that their allegations are not to be construed as allegations of fraud, misrepresentation or material omission. (See Am. Compl. ¶¶ 1, 23-26, 35-40; Pl.'s Resp. Br. at pp. 8-9.)

Defendants have moved to dismiss Plaintiffs' Amended Complaint for three reasons. First, Defendants contend that Plaintiffs' claims are covered by the Securities Litigation Uniform Standards Act of 1998 ("SLUSA") and, therefore, subject to dismissal pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6). Second, Defendants contend that the Amended Complaint should be dismissed for failure to state a claim under Rule 12(b)(6). Finally, Defendants argue that Plaintiffs' claims against Defendants JPMorgan Chase & Co. and J.P. Morgan Investment Management Inc. should be dismissed for lack of standing pursuant to Rule 12(b)(1).

SIDE BAR: 15 U.S. Code § 78bb

(f) Limitations on remedies

(1) Class action limitations. No covered class action based upon the statutory or common law of any State or subdivision thereof may be maintained in any State or Federal court by any private party alleging-

(A) a misrepresentation or omission of a material fact in connection with the purchase or sale of a covered security; or

(B) that the defendant used or employed any manipulative or deceptive device or contrivance in connection with the purchase or sale of a covered security.

(2) Removal of covered class actions. Any covered class action brought in any State court involving a covered security, as set forth in paragraph (1), shall be removable to the Federal district court for the district in which the action is pending, and shall be subject to paragraph (1).

Although, as mentioned above, Plaintiffs attempt to limit the nature of these allegations to admissions by the Defendants regarding their obligations to Plaintiffs, the substance of Plaintiffs' allegations, when considered in their entirety, amounts to a claim of a fraudulent scheme by Defendants to sell Defendants' own proprietary mutual funds at the expense of their financial advisory clients. Plaintiffs' Amended Complaint is replete with allegations that Defendants misrepresented its services for its own financial gain. The allegations of Plaintiffs' Amended Complaint "make it likely that an issue of fraud will arise in the course of the litigation." Brown, 664 F.3d at 128-29. As in Brown, 664 F.3d at 129, and Jorling, 836 F. Supp. 2d at 835, it will "be difficult and maybe impossible to disentangle" the fraud from Plaintiffs' contractual and fiduciary duty claims. Consequently, despite Plaintiffs' artful pleading, the Amended Complaint presents a claim for fraud

[T]he alleged fraud directly relates to the sale of proprietary mutual funds and satisfies SLUSA's "in connection" requirement. See Dabit, 547 U.S. at 86-87.

Holtz maintains that falsehoods and omissions have nothing to do with her claims. She tells us that they "are not in any way based on, dependent upon, or necessarily entangled with proof that [the Bank] made any false statements or omitted to disclose material information. Rather, [she] assert[s] simply that [the Bank] failed to provide the independent research, financial advice, and due diligence required by the parties' contract and their fiduciary relationship." The district court's problem with this contention-our problem too-is that the suit depends on Holtz's assertion that the Bank concealed the incentives it gave its employees. If it had told customers that its investment advisors were compensated more for selling the Bank's mutual funds than for selling third-party funds, plaintiffs would have no claim under either state or federal law. This means that nondisclosure is a linchpin of this suit no matter how Holtz chose to frame the pleadings.

We grant that the complaint omits any allegation of scienter, which is essential in private securities-fraud litigation. . . The statutory question is whether plaintiff alleges "a misrepresentation or omission of a material fact in connection with the purchase or sale of a covered security" (§78bb(f)(1)(A)). Whether the complaint pleads a particular state of mind is neither here nor there-a point we made in Brown v. Calamos, 664 F.3d 123, 126-27 (7th Cir. 2011), when holding that an investor cannot avoid the Litigation Act by omitting an allegation of scienter and attempting to frame common-law claims under state law. Every other circuit that has addressed the question likewise has held that a plaintiff cannot sidestep SLUSA by omitting allegations of scienter or reliance. See Miller v. Nationwide Life Insurance Co., 391 F.3d 698, 701-02 (5th Cir. 2004); Atkinson v. Morgan Asset Management, Inc., 658 F.3d 549 (6th Cir. 2011); Dudek v. Prudential Securities, Inc., 295 F.3d 875, 879-80 (8th Cir. 2002); Anderson v. Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith, Inc., 521 F.3d 1278, 1284 (10th Cir. 2008).

Dabit concluded that the Litigation Act is designed to prevent persons injured by securities transactions from engaging in artful pleading or forum shopping in order to evade limits on securities litigation that are designed to block frivolous or abusive suits . . .

After the Litigation Act, a plaintiff cannot proceed by omitting the securities theory and standing on state law in the sort of circumstances discussed in the preceding paragraph.

At oral argument, Holtz's lawyer told us that no sane person would have invested through the Bank had it revealed a bias for its own mutual funds-indeed, that the secret information contradicted the promise to act in investors' interest, and that the Bank never intended to keep its promise. All of this just brings the suit squarely within Wharf, which, recall, held that a concealed plan not to keep a promise about a securities transaction is securities fraud. Indeed, in Brown we rejected an argument that a plaintiff can avoid SLUSA by contending that no sane investor would have purchased the security (or the investment advice) if the truth had been told, and that the suit therefore must be about substance rather than disclosure. 664 F.3d at 129.

That some of the investment decisions were made by investment advisers as Holtz's agent does not take this out of the "in connection with" domain-otherwise suitability and churning could not be a securities theory. SEC v. Zandford, 535 U.S. 813 (2002), holds that the "in connection with" requirement is satisfied when a broker makes a purchase or sale as an investor's agent. That's equally true of transactions that the Bank made as Holtz's agent.

The Litigation Act does allow state-law claims in which the misrepresentations or omissions are not "material," see Appert, 673 F.3d at 616-17, but Holtz has not argued that the Bank's incentives to its employees were too small to be "material" under the standard of Matrixx Initiatives, Inc. v. Siracusano, 563 U.S. 27 (2011), and its predecessors. An omission is "material" when a reasonable investor would deem it significant to an investment decision. Holtz herself deems the Bank's incentives material to investments; that's the basis of this suit.

• SLUSA
• JPMorgan
• Class Action
• Fiduciary
• Suitability
• In Connection With
• BrokeAndBroker
• Bill Singer