Bank of America has filed a lawsuit against a team of financial advisors who defected earlier this year to another company, according to media reports.

The advisors, Michael Brown and Charles Britton, along with their staff Marcus Wilson and Amanda Kerley, have been accused of inappropriately taking proprietary documents and trade secrets with them when they resigned to join Dynasty Financial Partners. Dynasty was officially launched in early December this year, with ex-Citigroup wealth managers Shirl Penney and Todd Thomson at the helm.

BoA has also charged the defendants with violating their employment contracts for trying to entice former clients to join them at their new company. The team was reportedly managing $5.9 billion worth of client assets when they were still part of the US bank.

In its court filing, Bank of America is said to be seeking a temporary injunction and the return of client lists and other property. The bank is also asking that the defendants be banned from soliciting any US Trust clients for six months, in addition to the payment of an undisclosed amount in monetary damages.

In their defence, the accused countered that they were protected by the Protocol for Broker Recruiting, which allowed them to take some information to their new firm, to which neither BoA or its high net worth arm US Trust were signatories. Merrill Lynch, its brokerage unit, however, was a signatory.

The bank argues that the defendants cannot invoke the protection as they were not employees of Merrill Lynch and were under US Trust.

The case is currently being heard at the New York Supreme Court.