{"id":568428,"date":"2026-07-26T03:58:50","date_gmt":"2026-07-26T03:58:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/568428\/"},"modified":"2026-07-26T03:58:50","modified_gmt":"2026-07-26T03:58:50","slug":"judge-denies-merrill-tro-in-openarc-dynasty-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/568428\/","title":{"rendered":"Judge Denies Merrill TRO in OpenArc, Dynasty Case"},"content":{"rendered":"

A federal court judge in Georgia sided with new registered investment advisor OpenArc Corporate Advisory by dismissing a temporary restraining order requested in a lawsuit<\/a> filed against it by its former wirehouse employer, Merrill Lynch.<\/p>\n

Dynasty Financial Partners, OpenArc\u2019s platform provider and minority investor, and custodian Charles Schwab were also named in Merrill\u2019s court filing requesting injunctive relief and a temporary restraining order on the RIA’s work with clients.<\/p>\n

Judge Victoria Calvert in U.S. District Court in the Northern District of Georgia denied Merrill\u2019s request for injunctive relief and TRO requested last week, according to a spokesperson for Dynasty Financial Partners, OpenArc\u2019s platform provider and minority investor, which was also named in the lawsuit.<\/p>\n

According to the Dynasty spokesperson, Charles Schwab, the firm\u2019s custodian, has also avoided the order with the ruling.<\/p>\n

Related:Deals & Moves: RFG Advisory Caps Record Recruiting Run With Farther Advisor<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cToday\u2019s court decision is a watershed moment for the wealth management industry,\u201d Dynasty founder and CEO Shirl Penney said in a statement. \u201cThe judge found no evidence to show that the Protocol for Broker Recruitment was not followed. The court also noted that OpenArc, Dynasty and Schwab acted in good faith.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a lawsuit filed a week ago<\/a>, Merrill accused OpenArc, Dynasty, and Schwab of running a \u201cpremeditated corporate raid\u201d to lure the institutional-focused, Atlanta-based team out of the wirehouse to form the $129 billion RIA<\/a>. The firm\u2019s lead advisors, previously with Merrill\u2019s Global Corporate and Institutional Advisory Services division, were named in the lawsuit, with allegations that the firm could do \u201cirreparable harm\u201d to Merrill without the court\u2019s intervention.<\/p>\n

OpenArc, which announced its formation the day after the lawsuit was filed, denied the allegations and said the group had adhered to the Broker Protocol\u2014which it had recently joined\u2014in dealing with the transition. Dynasty and Schwab also denied the claims and called them baseless.<\/p>\n

Tuesday\u2019s ruling allows OpenArc to continue communicating with clients, according to the Dynasty spokesperson.<\/p>\n

In a statement, a Merrill spokesperson said the judge’s ruling is just the first step in the case.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe look forward to vigorously pursuing this matter in arbitration and are confident that a FINRA panel will agree that the defendants engaged in a corporate raid and conspired to poach our employees and clients,\u201d the spokesperson said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A federal court judge in Georgia sided with new registered investment advisor OpenArc Corporate Advisory by dismissing a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":568429,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[72,176,61,60,174,175],"class_list":["post-568428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-personal-finance","tag-business","tag-finance","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-personal-finance","tag-personalfinance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/568428","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=568428"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/568428\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/568429"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=568428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=568428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=568428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}