Morgan Stanley sued three of its former financial advisers based in Honolulu, accusing them of taking more than 1,000 clients and account records when they left to work for a Merrill Lynch & Co. brokerage.

Carl E. Choy, Lynne R. Kinney and Ronald C. Wo violated employment agreements by soliciting clients and removing confidential records, Morgan Stanley said in a complaint filed yesterday in federal court in Honolulu.

Before resigning from Morgan Stanley on Oct. 10, Kinney, Choy and Wo misappropriated confidential and proprietary information and used it to solicit business on behalf of Merrill Lynch, according to the complaint. The three had serviced about 1,200 individual client accounts with combined assets under management of about $900 million, according to the complaint.