Wall Street Folly

• Trader’s ‘Nice Little Kiss’ Tests Reach of Regulators
• 3 sue Bank of America alleging discrimination
• Stanford asks for new team to defend him
• Obama to Announce Expanded Offshore Oil Drilling Plan
• Home prices inch up, but analysts fear rebound is fading
• Schottenfeld Pays $1.2 Million to End SEC Insider-Trading Suit
• BofA Hires Staff, Leans on Merrill Lynch to Expand Outside U.S. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Allen Stanford, CDS, Deutsche Bank, Discrimination, Galleon, Hedge funds, Lawsuit, Merrill Lynch, Millennium Partner, Oil drilling, Raj Rajaratnam, SEC

• Bank of America to Pay for Merrill Backstop, Faces SEC Trial
• SEC Gets Tougher With Bank of America
• Amaranth Advisors Seeks at Least $350 Million From Touradji
• F.D.I.C. May Borrow Funds From Banks
• Fed to Miss Review Deadline
• AIG banks that Hank gets it out of the tank
• Gender bender at RBC
• Venezuela says to pay $5 bln oil service debts Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: AIG, Amaranth, Bank of America, Deutsche Bank, Discrimination, FDIC, Fed, Hedge funds, high yield bonds, Merrill Lynch, Oil, RBC, Real Estate, retail, SEC

To wear a Hermes scarf, or to not wear a Hermes scarf? To wear a jacket or to not wear a jacket? To go bare legged or to wear stockings?  Dress down or not?  And what does dressing down even mean for a woman at a hedge fund? 
Those are only some of the pressing fashion questions that professional hedge fund women face. The Wall Street Journal explores their clothing dilemma….

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Tags: Compensation, Discrimination, Fashion, Hedge funds, Revolving Door

It’s pretty bizarre to hear that working in a strip club women face less sexual harassment than they do on Wall Street, not to mention that the clubs are better run.  But that’s what former Morgan Stanley (no stranger to sexual harassment lawsuits) financial analyst Randi Newton, 28,  who was fired in the crash says.  She’s one of many professional women formerly making over six figures in their former jobs who have taken up working the pole since getting axed. You can find her three to four nights a week at Rick’s Cabaret in Murray Hill.

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Tags: Discrimination, Morgan Stanley, Revolving Door

A former HSBC senior banker, who claims he was dismissed in 2004 because he was gay, lost his appeal of the the high profile £5 million suit that he had brought against the firm:

Peter Lewis, HSBC’s former global head of equities trading, brought a 5 million-pound ($9.8 million) lawsuit after he was fired in 2004 for allegedly sexually harassing a male colleague. The Employment Appeals Tribunal in London today ruled the openly gay banker wasn’t dismissed because of his sexual orientation, backing an earlier ruling.

The tribunal also overturned findings HSBC discriminated against Lewis during its initial investigation of the harassment complaint, saying the employment panel that first heard the case drew “unfair” conclusions that weren’t argued. That part of the claim will be sent to a new tribunal for a rehearing.

“HSBC has always maintained that Mr. Lewis was dismissed for gross misconduct following a complaint of sexual harassment made against him by another member of staff and for no other reason,” spokesman Pierre Goad said in a statement.

Ex-HSBC Banker Peter Lewis Loses Gay Bias Appeal – Bloomberg

Tags: Discrimination, HSBC, Lawsuit

In a legal scuffle that dates back to 1997 where 900 women filed a sex discrimination against Merrill Lynch, only six of them took it all the way through the arbitration process.  One of the litigants, Nancy Thomas, duked it out with Merrill in front of a panel of three judges over 37 days with closing arguments ending last Tuesday.  The panel heard her story of how "she was appalled by office episodes that included an obscene photo dropped at her desk; a dildo and lubricating cream left for her in the mailroom; and an office incident in which a male broker allegedly pulled down the underwear of a Merrill woman."   Thomas is asking for $22 million plus compensation for emotional distress as well as punitive damages.  There’s no word on when the panel of judges will rule.

To hear Merrill Lynch & Co. tell it, Nancy Thomas was a lovesick stockbroker whose broken engagement 17 years ago turned her into a branch-office loser from a Wall Street success story.

In a prickly case that may cost Merrill millions — Thomas is asking for $22 million, plus payment for emotional distress and punitive damages — arbitrators will have to buy into Merrill’s soap-opera tale if the brokerage firm is to walk away with its wallet intact.

Or, alternatively, the arbitrators could be persuaded that the law favors Thomas, who endured a crude, hostile workplace long on retaliation and vulgar humor and short on the perks and support that went to her male colleagues.

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Tags: Discrimination, Lawsuit, Legal, Merrill Lynch

We meant to post this yesterday, but time just got away from us.  On Sunday, The Observer featured an interview with Polly Courtney, who’s coming out with the novel "Golden Handcuffs" in November, about two recent college graduates who find themselves "working with, for, and against each other" at competing investment banking firms in London. "It is about ambition, resilience and shattered dreams, and what it means to sell your soul to the City."

And it’s something that she’s said to have experienced first hand as both an intern and in a full time job with a banking firm.  In the interview, Ms. Courtney talks about being courted, as well as the perks and high pay that she received  –  but which ultimately came at the expense of being hugely overworked, subjected to unpredictable hours, sexism (including comments about how/why she got her job and never feeling properly invited to "lads night out") and nasty backstabbing.  It wasn’t worth it to her.  So the disillusioned banker chucked it to write her upcoming book.

By way of curiousity, we found that Ms. Courtney has a website where we notice that she has some interesting thoughts on the Helen Green court decision vs Deutsche Bank. (aka woman who was awarded £800,000 after having been bullied by female employees.). (More below).

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Tags: Banking Culture, Books, Discrimination, Interns, Merrill Lynch

The suit that won’t go away: Merrill Lynch wants an arbitration panel to end an obligation to the winner of a $2.2 million discrimination suit on the grounds that they’ve already fulfilled the terms.  In 2004, Hydie Sumner won her case after claiming that Merrill denied her a spot in the firm’s management training program.  In July 2005, an arbitration panel said that Merrill had to rehire her as a financial consultant and give her a spot in that program.  Merrill offered her a position in management, bypassing the training program which they thought would fulfill their obligation.  However, Ms. Sumner turned down the position, on the grounds that not letting her go through the training program would cause others to think that she didn’t earn her position in management….

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Tags: Discrimination, Lawsuit, Merrill Lynch

Dresdner Kleinwort has failed in its attempt to have "scandalous and impertinent" allegations brought against the firm by a group of six women who filed a record $1.4 billion discrimination claim against the company excluded from the lawsuit they filed.  The judge in the case also denied the company’s request to have Katherine Smith (according to the suit, dubbed "the Pamela Anderson of trading" by her boss) removed from the suit on the grounds that she works in Dresdner’s London office.  Pictured above are the five New York plaintiffs;  Katherine Smith is pictured below.

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Tags: Discrimination, Dresdner

Peter Lewis, who had filed a £5 million suit against HSBC alleging that he was fired because he was gay, has lost most of his case.  The court ruled that the firing wasn’t motivated by his sexuality, but because HSBC had reached a "genuine and legitimate" conclusion that Lewis had committed a private sex act in the gym showers at HSBC’s headquarters….

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Tags: Discrimination, HSBC, Lawsuit

Mireya D’Angelo, a well connected senior anti-money-laundering lawyer formerly with HSBC’s private bank, has sued the bank for discrimiation after being fired last August for alleged time and expenses violations…. 

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Tags: Discrimination, HSBC, Lawsuit

Not wanting to leave anything to chance with an employer he didn’t trust, HSBC firee Peter Lewis secretly filmed his HSBC appeal hearing and has it all on a handy DVD.

Will HSBC be the ones caught with their knickers down?

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Tags: Discrimination, HSBC, Lawsuit

The tribunal investigating HSBC and the case of the gay sacking visited the scene of the alleged crime, the HSBC fitness center changing room and shower.  The Evening Standard noted yesterday that they might even be re-enacting the encounters between the plaintiff, Peter Lewis and the mystery staffer involved.

Brokeback Bankers…coming soon….to a website near you…

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Tags: Discrimination, HSBC, Lawsuit

In a test of new UK laws prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation, a trial is expected to begin tomorrow that’s believed to be the first of its kind in the City.  Peter Lewis, former global head of equity trading at HSBC earning £1 million a year, who claims that he was wrongfully dismissed last year because of the fact that he’s openly gay, is suing the bank for £5 million.

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Tags: Discrimination, HSBC, Lawsuit

Dresdner Klienwort Wasserstein isn’t taking the $1.4 billion sex discrimination suit filed against them by six female employees lying down.  They’ve filed court documents accusing the group of courting the press for publicity and attempting to smear the company’s reputation.  Five of the six women who filed suit are shown in the picture.

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Tags: Discrimination, Dresdner, Lawsuit

Meet Katherine Smith.  She’s one of the six women at the heart of the $1.4 billion sex discrimiation suit against Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein — the one working in the London office who was dubbed by her boss, Rupert Fraser, as "the Pamela Anderson of trading". 

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Tags: Discrimination, Dresdner, Lawsuit

Has the world gone mad?  That’s what one man is asking in an editorial piece on British website ‘Here in the City”, where he comments on the recent Morgan Stanley strip club firings and the various sexual descrimination suits.

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Tags: Discrimination, Dresdner, investment banking, Lawsuit, Morgan Stanley

We posted late yesterday that 6 women from Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein are suing the firm for $1.4 billion in a ‘glass ceiling’ descrimination suit.  The Wall Street Journal fleshes out the charges.  It seems that this one too, involves a trip to a strip club. 

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Tags: Discrimination, Dresdner, Lawsuit

Does Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein treat men better?  That’s what six women who slapped the firm with a $1.4 billion class action law suit claim.

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Tags: Discrimination, Dresdner, Lawsuit