Key Bank takes former employees and rival firm to federal court

Financial services giant Key Bank is suing three former employees, accusing them of poaching customers for a new rival days after leaving the bank’s South Bend office.

Key Bank says Montana-based D.A. Davidson & Co.  staged a “coordinated lift-out” of employees Shane Martens, Jonathan Cisna and Lora Lorenz, who walked out of Key Private Bank’s South Bend office on May 19, moments after submitting nearly identical resignation letters, according to a lawsuit filed Monday in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Indiana.

D.A. Davidson, which also is named as a defendant, did not respond to requests for comment from The Indiana Lawyer. The three former employees could not be reached for comment.

Key Bank is asking for preliminary temporary injunctive relief to stop the alleged “unlawful poaching of Key’s customers by former employees in violation of their contractual obligations, and to protect Key’s confidential information from further misuse,” the lawsuit states.

The company says its former employees began poaching customers from D.A. Davidson’s new office in Mishawaka shortly after leaving Key’s South Bend office.

An individual known as “Customer 1” informed Key officials that two people, including a male who called himself “Shane,” contacted him about moving accounts on or about May 22, 2026, according to court documents.

Jonathan Cisna on or before May 20, 2026, called “Customer 2” and said he had left Key and was staying in the area as part of an attempt to entice that customer to leave Key for D.A. Davidson, the complaint states, noting that this call happened while the customer was on the phone with a Key Bank employee.

The lawsuit also states that another former employee who had been fired helped recruit the three defendants away from Key to get revenge against the company.

That employee benefitted “from utilizing his new position and knowledge of Key’s strategy, team makeup, and restrictive covenant details to get back at Key by luring away its employees and inducing them to breach their contractual obligations,” the lawsuit states.

Martens served as Key Private Bank’s senior relationship manager from 2014 through May 19, 2026, giving him access to customers and information.

Lorenz and Cisna also had similar access. According to the lawsuit, they along with Martens “functioned as a top-tier, integrated client-service team for Key’s customers in northern Indiana and beyond.”

Key says an offer letter Martens signed in 2014 included a non-solicitation provision. He also signed a trade secret agreement, which barred him from recruiting Key employees for at least a year after terminating his employment with Key.

The other two former employees entered into similar agreements, according to the complaint.

“Each of the Former Employees also agreed not to use or otherwise disclose Key’s confidential information and trade secrets after their employment,” Key’s attorneys stated in the lawsuit.