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Queen’s bank investigated treatment of women

Coutts took disciplinary action after female bankers complained about unwanted physical contact and other behaviour

Queen’s bank investigated treatment of women
Photo: Ben Phillips

Coutts & Co. had a problem. Women at the three-century-old private bank, where Queen Elizabeth II keeps money, complained of physical and verbal harassment by male colleagues. Some women refused to work with star banker Harry Keogh, the man at the center of many of the complaints, The Wall Street Journal reports.

In 2015 the bank assigned a senior banker, Gayle Schumacher, to conduct an internal investigation of Keogh’s team of dozens of bankers, according to Coutts documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. Schumacher interviewed 20 Coutts bankers and was told about allegations of inappropriate behaviour by Keogh and other bankers, including lewd comments, heavy drinking and unwanted physical contact, according to written accounts of the conversations reviewed by the Journal.

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