Legal News

An employee who was suing her former boss for sex discrimination was herself sacked by her current employer after comparing her to a criminal.
Latifa Bouabdillah who resigned as vice president and director of financial giant Deutsche Bank at the end of 2011 and launched a bid to sue the bank for £1million over claims that men were promoted over her for bonuses which were three times larger than hers.
She found a job with Commerzbank AG but she was sacked from the firm when her bosses found out about her sexism case through a new article.
The Central London Employment Tribunal heard how Miss Bouabdillah kept her claim a secret from her new employers because she feared they wouldn’t’ offer her the £150,000 a year post as head of product engineering and sales in their Exotic Vanilla Funds Team if they knew.
When her new employers found out about the suit they told her that she had put their reputation "at risk" and that the matter had been escalated to "very senior" people in the bank's German head office, it is claimed.
In a witness statement submitted to the tribunal she said that it had become a big issue internally and she was worried a lot because it had the potentials of damaging her career with the respondent and her career in general.
When her employers asked her if it was the first time she had sued an institution she said that it was and that she had no intention of doing it again and the current job would allow her to move on with her life.
She was likened to a shoplifter by the bank's senior HR partner Nigel Marsden and was left feeling "distressed, demeaned and humiliated" by her bosses who interrogated her, it was said.
Though she said that she was the victim in her claim and was not able to understand why it was being made an issue it seemed they were just looking for an excuse to dismiss her.
She added the meeting had hurt here a lot and in a subsequent meeting on June 11th last year she was dismissed from her job within a month of her appointment to the job. She has now filed a case against the bank for sex discrimination and unfair dismissal.
Commerzbank denies the allegations and claimed that it dismissed the banker because she had broken their trust. Guy Middleton, head of sales trading said when asked the reason she left her previous job, to her recruitment consultant she was reassured that it was because she wanted to move to a smaller team.
This amounted to withholding of information and she couldn’t be trusted he added. The hearing has been adjourned for judgement.