WFC Wells Fargo and Company

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)

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