Wells Fargo Discloses Accidental Client-Data Release
25 July 2017 - 6:16AM
Dow Jones News
By Lisa Beilfuss
Wells Fargo & Co. said it accidentally released confidential
information on tens of thousands of the bank's wealth-advisory
clients, the latest misstep as it works to recover from last year's
cross-selling scandal.
The information was released in response to a subpoena relating
to a former employee's defamation lawsuit against his brother, who
is a current Wells Fargo adviser. The disclosure came to light
after Aaron Zeisler, an attorney at Zeisler PLLC in New York
representing Gary Sinderbrand, a former employee of Wells Fargo
Advisors LLC, informed a Wells Fargo lawyer.
In a letter addressed to Angela Turiano, an outside lawyer for
Wells Fargo, Mr. Zeisler said an initial review of the documents
shows "they include social security numbers, account numbers,
names, addresses, telephone numbers and other personal identifying
information." The documents weren't marked confidential and "were
not produced pursuant to any protective order or confidentiality
agreement," the letter said.
Shea Leordeanu, a spokeswoman for Wells Fargo, attributed the
disclosure to a failure to redact information that was turned over
in response to Mr. Sinderbrand's suit. "Wells Fargo is currently
taking swift legal action to ensure client data, which was
inadvertently released to a lawyer as the result of a subpoena, is
returned immediately," Ms. Leordeanu said. "Our systems are
secure."
A separate letter from Mr. Zeisler suggests that he and Mr.
Sinderbrand don't expect to make the information public and would
return the documents "at the appropriate time." Mr. Sinderbrand
declined to comment through his attorney.
A spokeswoman for the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority,
Wall Street's self-regulatory body, declined to comment about
whether it was looking into the matter. Ms. Turiano declined to
comment.
The New York Times earlier reported the disclosure of the client
data.
The disclosure of client information release is the latest
controversy for Wells Fargo, which has been trying to repair its
reputation in the wake of a sales scandal that came to light last
fall.
Write to Lisa Beilfuss at lisa.beilfuss@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
July 24, 2017 16:01 ET (20:01 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2017 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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