Cavner settles with Lawing Financial

Former financial adviser Nadia Cavner today settled with Overland Park, Kan.-based Lawing Financial Inc. after months of legal battling.

A statement provided to Springfield Business Journal by Cavner this morning said she and the Nadia Cavner Group and Lawing Financial and its CEO Kerry Lawing “amicably agreed to resolve their dispute in a confidential agreement.”

“Lawing looks forward to devoting its exclusive focus to the continued service of its clients,” the statement reads. “Cavner looks forward to continuing to devote her energy to her philanthropic work that is so close to her heart and to maintaining the friendships of those whom she formerly served as clients.”

Lawing Financial, which purchased Nadia Cavner Group in January 2014, filed suit in April 2015 alleging Cavner broke an agreement with the firm by continuing to contact and pursue its clients after being permanently barred from acting as a broker or selling securities by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority in May 2014. Lawing further claimed she overvalued her firm and sought a $1 million refund toward the purchase of her company and to free itself from the additional $2 million owed.

Cavner countersued in August, saying Lawing had no grounds to say she overvalued the firm or interfered with its business. In the suit, Cavner sought damages of $500,000 from the company for her consulting work, at least $75,000 in damages and the remaining $2 million owed for the sale of her company.

In November, Lawing further alleged its former employee, Andrew Denney, conspired with Cavner.

Court documents filed today indicate the case has been dismissed, but a settlement figure was not included.

It’s not the first time Cavner has reached the end of a long legal battle.

In 2007, a judge dismissed a suit filed two years prior by U.S. Bancorp Investments Inc. alleging Cavner improperly attempted to lure away her clients from that company when she joined The Signature Bank, now BancorpSouth.