When a Deutsche Bank compliance executive set up a women-focused webinar in March, he wanted to celebrate their progress at the firm to mark Women’s History Month. But Joe Salama, who leads the German lender’s anti-financial crime unit, instead faced a series of anecdotes about unwanted sexual advances from some of the eight women on the panel and staff who tuned in.
“One of the women on the webinar was told if she behaved a certain way and came out for drinks in the evening, she would have a better chance of being promoted,” a Deutsche Bank staffer who listened to the panel told Financial News.
Another, who is a managing director, experienced unwanted advances from a senior executive when she went on a business trip to South Africa. She had initially enjoyed his company and would go to the bar for a drink with him when invited after long days.
“About halfway through the project, the executive sent me an email on my corporate account saying that when he saw my bare stomach when I lifted my arms to put a suitcase in the overhead compartment of a plane, he realised he was very attracted to me and had romantic feelings,” she recalled. “I stopped going to the bar for drinks after that.”
When she reported the email to HR, she was told to “not worry about it” as the executive was probably going through a midlife crisis. It was one of three anecdotes she shared on the panel.
A Deutsche Bank spokesperson said the experiences did not take place while the women were employed at the bank and that it takes “matters of workforce behaviour and sexual harassment very seriously”.
“This [webinar] is exactly the kind of thing we need to be doing across the industry and will continue to do so,” they added. “If concerns are raised relating to conduct by Deutsche Bank employees, we will investigate them and ensure appropriate consequences.”
Not alone
The harrowing experiences shared by some of Deutsche Bank’s female staff are far from isolated cases. They also signal the ongoing issues of sexual harassment and bullying in financial services and the wider business world. Women who bear the brunt of these abuses told FN they often end up leaving their jobs while those instigating them continue in their high-paying roles.
“These situations also showed me how difficult it can be emotionally and professionally to be confronted with unwanted sexual advances by someone who is on the winning side of a power differential,” the Deutsche Bank MD said on the panel.
Data provided to FN from the non-profit, Speak Out Revolution, shows that 56% of City workers who lodged a formal complaint over unfair dismissal in the workplace ended up leaving the company.
Women are often silenced by a culture that discourages speaking out, flawed whistle-blowing systems and a prevalence of legal mechanisms such as non-disclosure agreements that prevent grievances from leaking out into the public eye. These effectively quash victims’ claims that could lead to legal proceedings. Even pursuing legal action is too great a financial risk for individuals who would pit themselves against global multi-billion dollar corporations.
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These seemingly impenetrable systems have protected the alleged perpetrators of sexual harassment and abuse for decades.
Nikhil Rathi, the boss of City watchdog the Financial Conduct Authority, called out a “corporate culture that tolerates sexual harassment” in a letter to the Treasury Committee sent this month.
MPs are demanding answers about why it has taken so long for any action to be taken over allegations surrounding hedge fund manager Crispin Odey. There have been several high-profile cases since March, including that of Odey — who faces allegations of sexual misconduct stretching back decades — and the claims of a “toxic culture” at the Confederation of British Industry, which has left it facing an uncertain future amid allegations of rape.
READ Crispin Odey scandal: All you need to know about the fallout for the hedge fund
But increasing numbers of women are now coming forward with their stories of harassment or abuse. Beyond this, those on the raw end of misconduct — from the victims and campaigners to regulators and politicians — are also now feeling more empowered to upend the Square Mile’s embedded culture of silence.
“I would encourage anyone who may be a victim of or witness to crime to consider going to the police, which has specialist units to investigate sexual offences and dedicated support for victims of sexual offences,” Rathi said.
FN learned through a Freedom of Information Act request that the FCA has received 189 allegations or complaints since July 2021 about financial services workers’ behaviour. Bullying, harassment and physical aggression accounted for 81 of the complaints; another 40 related to sexual misconduct and 12 involved “social misbehaviour”.
The Treasury Committee, led by chair Harriett Baldwin, has launched an inquiry to investigate sexism in the City that will specifically look into how harassment and misogyny can be addressed.
‘Horrifying and intolerable’
City firms are now starting to take the matter more seriously. Deutsche Bank’s Salama followed up the meeting in March with an email note to staff in April, which FN has seen. He described the women’s experiences as “horrifying” and “intolerable”.
“If any of you find yourself in a difficult position or experience in such situations, we would like to remind you of today’s key message. You are not alone,” he wrote. “You do not have to deal with workplace challenges on your own.” He also reminded employees of the firm’s internal systems for flagging harassment.
But a fear of the negative consequences that could ruin careers still runs deep — despite firms’ internal mechanisms, which encourage victims to speak out — women contacted by FN said.
“I was badly bullied by someone very senior because of my gender. I was threatened over the phone that if I disclosed that I was being bullied, I was going to lose my job,” a London-based hedge fund manager told FN.
She added that all the senior women in finance that she knew have also faced harassment or bullying at some point in their careers.
“I was threatened over the phone that if I disclosed that I was being bullied, I was going to lose my job”
“All of them are scared of losing their jobs if they speak up, as I am. You don’t want to be seen as a ‘troublemaker’ that no one wants to hire.”
The hedge fund industry views women as “nice trophies” to have, she said.
“It is enough to visit some firms and see that almost all — if not all — the portfolio managers are male. And the women there are doing mainly admin functions and they tend to dress as if they were on a catwalk,” she said.
Bullies called out
Jamie Fiore Higgins drew attention to the harassment, bullying and misogyny she claims to have seen during her 18 years at Goldman Sachs in her 2022 book, Bully Market. The bank refutes the claims.
Higgins told FN that individuals with money and influence come away “unscathed” from these incidents.
“There is an element of them thinking they’re above the law because that’s what has been shown to them,” Higgins said.
In her book, she recounts how an internal Facebook-style platform intended to encourage staff to reach out to new hires was used very differently by male colleagues.
“They pored over it and actually created an Excel spreadsheet, even with macros, that ranked the women based on their appearance, their breast size and leg length. Their whole thing was: ‘We’re gonna determine who we mentor and have coffee and have drinks with based on that.’”
“Once you go down the grievance route, it then becomes something that’s included in all employment referrals going forward... it’s a deterrent.”
Higgins said she felt “empowered” after raising her voice about the work culture she witnessed, but she hasn’t escaped the cost of exposing the ugly side of the financial services world.
“I’ve had women groups of different large companies reach out to me to book me to come and talk with them. And then suddenly I get a personal message that says, ‘Sorry, we’re not allowed to have you’ for fear of retaliation,” Higgins told FN.
Most financial services organisations have internal processes that theoretically offer the chance for fair and unbiased representation.
But this isn’t always clear-cut. A complaint of sexual harassment, bullying or sexual assault might be difficult to prove in ‘she said, he said’ scenarios. Going down the route of the formal internal grievance process is prickly, too.
“Once you go down the grievance route, it then becomes something that’s included in all employment referrals going forward. So it’s a deterrent,” a major City bank employee said.
Mediation is intended to be a softer approach in which an unbiased third party helps the employee and employer amicably resolve issues. But that process is “pointless”, the employee added. “They’re facilitated by non-mediators: bright young things in HR that have no real experience at all and who are not trained to be a mediator.”
A pernicious tool
Financial services firms use NDAs to ensure employees do not reveal confidential deals or customer or proprietary information. Staff are asked to sign them as a matter of course when leaving an organisation.
But NDAs are also used to silence victims, when companies are caught on the wrong side of a sexual harassment or bullying case and the victim has a strong case against a perpetrator, women contacted by FN said.
Bellevue Law barrister Georgina Calvert-Lee said that more often than not, firms are willing to use NDAs to silence legitimate claims from staff that would be damaging within and outside the firm. The agreement would prohibit staff from speaking about a matter or publicising it in any way. Those signing the NDA are offered a fee or settlement in return.
“Some may want to protect [an alleged perpetrator] because maybe he’s the boss or founder. He could be a great rainmaker who brings in lots of money. And so they know he misbehaves a lot of the time and they want to shut the person up because, of course, it’s reputationally damaging,” Calvert-Lee said.
She noted that in some instances, a firm paying a settlement, which goes hand in hand with an NDA, could also indicate willingness to “show respect” to an employee and to some extent “see their side” — provided they don’t talk about the matter either. Equally, an employer might prefer to have their day in court and be vindicated.
“Some may want to protect an alleged perpetrator because maybe he’s the boss or founder. He could be a great rainmaker who brings in lots of money.”
Of those who expect to sign an NDA, 34% said they would not raise the issue formally with their managers or HR, according to Speak Out Revolution.
One woman who famously broke her NDA was Zelda Perkins, who was the assistant to convicted sex offender and former movie mogul Harvey Weinstein.
Her decision was not so much about Weinstein, more about the legal sector as a whole, she told FN. “It’s very convenient for everybody to scream and shout at Harvey because he’s the perfect ogre. He got what he deserves. I’m not being soft on him, but he’s not the problem. The problem is a system that encourages and allows and protects that behaviour.”
READ Legal watchdog probes lawyers’ role in use of NDAs to silence victims of workplace misconduct
The regulator for the legal profession, the Legal Services Board, is investigating the role lawyers play in the way companies use NDAs to conceal wrongdoing and silence victims of workplace misconduct. But why do employees — or victims — take the money and agree to an NDA?
An employee at a top UK wealth management firm told FN she was asked to sign an NDA before leaving her job. She claims that before she left, a senior male executive in the business relentlessly bullied her and her colleagues. She said he would publicly undermine colleagues in meetings, engage in gaslighting, and make disparaging and insensitive remarks. Frequently, he would lose his temper and berate staff, she added.
However, despite the conduct issues, the executive — a City veteran who has held roles at some of the top asset managers in the Square Mile — managed to keep his role because he had a “chummy relationship” with the chief executive, she said.
“The guy was like Teflon,” she added.
Calvert-Lee pointed out the NDA financial payment isn’t usually the driver for the settlement. “It all comes down to the practical difficulty of bringing a lawsuit against your employer,” she said. Employees may approach a lawyer after being bullied, fired or because the problems were damaging to their mental health.
“As soon as [an employee] quits or as soon as [the firm] knows that they are a litigation threat, the employee will be cut off from all the systems. So they no longer have access to a lot of the evidence they would need. The employer has complete access to the evidence they need,” she said.
And while disclosure can be demanded of a firm by a court, it is dependent on the honesty and reliability of the employer, Calvert-Lee said.
Former Goldman MD Higgins agreed the NDA is harsh, but “that’s what a lot of companies do”, she said. “They gag people and pay them off, and arrive at these in-house settlements, which never see the light of court or any other sort of external procedure. There’s no scrutiny and there’s no transparency.”
A gruelling process
Those who feel they have been victims of sexual harassment or bullying can choose to go through an employment tribunal, where they are entitled to represent themselves. Fees usually associated with court action are not incurred.
But the process can be gruelling and costly. In her disability discrimination tribunal case involving a cancer diagnosis, Adeline Willis is still awaiting a ruling on her claim for damages after the tribunal found that senior managers at her former employer NatWest showed “clear evidence of discriminatory intent”.
READ A fired NatWest manager’s lessons on fighting cancer and taking your employer to tribunal
Willis, a former manager at the bank’s London office, instructed a legal team in April 2020. She had found herself juggling chemotherapy treatments with job hunting, just as the Covid-19 lockdown hit, when her former employer dismissed her from her £160,000-a-year role — days after her bowel cancer surgery in 2020.
She told FN she has spent “several hundred thousand pounds” in legal fees, but won’t receive an order for these costs, since this is not part of the process at the employment tribunal.
How to break the silence?
Higgins said outsized compensation and bonuses, which typically drop once a year at institutions such as investment banks, should be looked at as one way to unshackle employees too fearful to speak out.
Someone earning £1m a year would get most of this through an annual bonus payment, which incentivises employees to toe the line rather than call out bad behaviour, she said.
“That windfall, that kind of carrot you dangle, manipulates your employees’ behaviour,” she said.
The result is people simply won’t talk about the misconduct they witness.
“There are a lot of decent men in this industry, but they’re there to make money for their family and themselves. It doesn’t surprise me that they are motivated just to keep their heads down,” she said.
But policing behaviour is also needed, she said. “At Goldman Sachs, we had compliance officers literally at our shoulder, constantly checking what we do to make sure the [Securities and Exchange Commission] isn’t going to slam down our door. Why don’t they police behaviour as fervently? The problem is there’s a disconnect.”
The answer, she adds, could also lie in firms being brave about “safe space” — in the same way that Deutsche Bank has. Firms talk about safe spaces, but “ideas without action are nothing,” Higgins said.
Bullying and bad behaviour: High-profile cases of misconduct in the City
Crispin Odey
Odey Asset Management
City titan Crispin Odey has been rocked by 19 accusations of sexual misconduct in June and July 2023, two years after being acquitted for indecent assault. The allegations against the hedge fund founder — which he strenuously denies — detail incidents stretching back five decades, such as forcing a woman’s hand onto his genitals and masturbating on a female entrepreneur after a business meeting. Two women who came forward in a joint Financial Times and Tortoise Media investigation are pursuing civil damages claims.
Goldman Sachs
Former female employees of Goldman Sachs accused the bank of widespread discrimination in pay and promotions. Cristina Chen-Oster and Shanna Orlich launched a legal challenge in 2010 alleging a ‘boys’ club’ culture, which grew into one of Wall Street’s biggest and longest-running class action lawsuits. Goldman Sachs agreed to a $215m settlement in May 2023, resulting in a payout for 2,800 claimants.
Santander
Santander’s UK chief risk officer Eduardo Consolini Bastida was probed by the bank and the Financial Conduct Authority in 2022 over accusations he made sexual jokes and inappropriate comments to female colleagues. At least three employees lodged complaints, which span several years.
UBS
A woman claimed she was raped by a senior executive at UBS while she was a graduate trainee in September 2017. The Swiss bank settled a lawsuit with the former junior trader in June 2020 for an undisclosed amount.
BNP Paribas
Stacey Macken, a former banker at BNP Paribas, won a £2m payout in January 2022 after a UK employment tribunal ruled she was discriminated against because of her gender. Macken claimed she was paid significantly less than her male counterparts and endured disparaging comments and bullying at the bank. On one occasion, colleagues left a witch’s hat on her desk after a heavy night of drinking.
To contact the authors of this story with feedback or news, email Penny Sukhraj, Kristen McGachey and Bilal Jafar
