Ex-Morgan Stanley brokers, who have a pending lawsuit seeking class action status against the wirehouse based on unpaid deferred compensation claims, tried a new tack this week.
In a brief filed Tuesday, they argue that a recent ruling in another federal lawsuit, initiated by former BBQ restaurant workers against the trustees of an Employee Stock Ownership Plan, bolsters their objections to having their claims against Morgan Stanley moved to individual arbitrations.
Morgan Stanley had filed in June a pending motion to compel the brokers to arbitrate individually their claims. The ex-Morgan Stanley brokers filed those claims in a Manhattan federal court initially in December 2020.
A federal judge presiding in the BBQ workers’ case, also in the Manhattan federal courts, ruled in a December 6-issued opinion that the former employees of the WBBQ chain in Manhattan did not have to go to individual arbitrations to pursue their claims.
With that ruling, the judge denied the motion to compel individual arbitrations filed by the defendants in the WBBQ case. The WBBQ defendants had, like Morgan Stanley in the ex-brokers’ litigation, based their motion to compel arbitration on mandatory arbitration clauses in the restaurant workers’ employment agreements.
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