A client is suing Commonwealth Financial Network, accusing the wealth management company of breach of fiduciary duty for paying customers low interest on their uninvested cash in so-called sweep accounts.

Edward Weyler filed his lawsuit in a federal court in Massachusetts on June 22. He is seeking class action status on behalf of himself and other Commonwealth customers. Weyler is asking the court for monetary compensation.

LPL Financial bought Waltham, Mass.-based Commonwealth last year. A spokeswoman for LPL Financial declined to comment on the lawsuit.

Weyler's lawsuit is the latest legal complaint regarding sweep cash. For years, it has been a common brokerage industry practice to move, or "sweep," customers' idle dollars into bank accounts that pay little interest.

Commonwealth doesn't operate its own bank; instead it moves customers' cash to accounts at banks that participate in one of its two sweep account programs, Weyler's lawsuit says. For many customers, interest rates in Commonwealth's sweep accounts never exceeded 0.75% over the past four years even as overall rates topped 5%, according to the lawsuit.

"While program banks paid (and continue to pay) high, market-based interest rates on program participants' cash, Commonwealth passes along minuscule interest rates, wholly divorced from the market to its customers and pockets the vast majority of the interest earned on participants' cash for itself by taking a non-market-based fee," the lawsuit states.

Commonwealth, as the investment advisor to clients, earns advisory fees on the deposits in the sweep program, according to the lawsuit.

Weyler, a resident of Anchorage, Ky., has been a Commonwealth customer since 2016. He maintained several advisory accounts at the company, both retirement and brokerage accounts.

His lawsuit comes amid turbulent times for stocks of wealth management companies. Investors sold off shares of LPL Financial, Charles Schwab, and other companies this year on concerns that forthcoming artificial intelligence tools could help clients automatically move idle cash to higher paying options or investments. That could put pressure on sweep cash profits. Shares of LPL Financial are down 24% this year.

Write to Andrew Welsch at andrew.welsch@barrons.com

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June 26, 2026 15:02 ET (19:02 GMT)

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