Nomura sued for sex and race discrimination
A few months back, I posted about an article that claimed former female employees of Lehman Brothers were being made to serve tea after their company was taken over by Nomura Holdings. The article implied that women used to the Lehman’s treatment of female employees found the conditions at Nomura to unfair and demeaning.
Now it seems two women in London are suing the Nomura for sex and race discrimination and unfair dismissal:
In legal papers, Miss Murphy claims that during a business meeting one male client said to her female colleague “Oh, you don’t have your honkers out today I see”.
The documents say: “Miss Murphy was initially not sure what he was referring to but [the colleague] clarified honkers referred to her breasts.
“She went on to say there was no point in standing up to him as he would smear your reputation in the entire market and that ultimately it was better just to accept it.”
Miss Murphy also claimed that when she was chatting to a trader about hiring a cleaner he allegedly said “Well, you’re a woman. That’s where you belong – at home cleaning the floors”.
At a team dinner, another male colleague allegedly said “Everyone knows the key to cheating on your wife is not getting caught”.
Miss Murphy says that she was excluded from clients and marginalised before being made redundant in March this year. She also claims that she was ridiculed for her American accent, with traders allegedly making remarks like “Go for it” in a mock accent.
She said that clients were also described in “unusual and unacceptable ways”, such as one Dutch trader, who was labelled a “weirdo Euro client”.
[...]
Miss Francis, who is originally from New Zealand but speaks fluent Japanese, said that during a conference call with up to 1,000 of her global peers, a male colleague humiliated her by saying “Don’t listen to her. She is just a Kiwi”.
She said that her new Japanese bosses showed “remarkable disregard” for her clients wishing to retain her as their primary sales contact.
“I believe that I would not have been treated in this way if I was a male employee and especially if I was a Japanese male employee,” Miss Francis said.
She was made redundant because she was “too outspoken and female”, her former boss allegedly told Miss Murphy.
He also allegedly said that “the Japanese hate women, especially if they are too loud”.
An official spokesman for Nomura has denied the charges of racism and sexism and has stated that the two were dismissed “by reason of redundancy as part of a wider reorganisation following the Lehman Brothers acquisition.”
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