NZ banker loses claim over sexism in workplace

A high-flying New Zealand banking executive has lost a court case in which she alleged sexist Japanese bosses hounded her out of a £250,000 ($542,000) a year job in London.

Anna Francis, 37, a director who worked in Asian equities sales at Lehman Brothers before the bank collapsed in September 2008, lost her case against investment bank Nomura which took over Lehman's British arm, the Financial News website reported.

Ms Francis, who has British and New Zealand nationality, worked for Lehman from September 2004 until its collapse, and was part of the bank's pan-Asian equity sales team before transferring to Nomura. She was dismissed in January last year.

A separate claim alleging race and sex discrimination was filed against Nomura by Maureen Murphy, a German national of German and American origin who had worked for Lehman as an analyst. She was sacked in March last year.

In a judgment sent yesterday to parties in the case, the London Central Employment Tribunal unanimously rejected each of the women's complaints as "not well-founded", according to a copy of the judgment seen by Financial News.

The tribunal was told Ms Francis wanted £1.5 million compensation for loss of earnings and injury to feelings, after her bosses withheld work and fired her because she was female and non-Japanese.

Ms Francis told the tribunal there was "obvious hostility" from Nomura staff when her Lehman team moved to the Japanese bank's offices.

She claimed to have been promised a place on a new Asian equities sales team, but was instead made redundant.

After Nomura bought bankrupt Lehman's European operations, its London office dismissed 425 employees between November 2008 and April 2009. Documents showed 12 per cent of male staff and 14.6 per cent of female workers were dismissed. About 174 were former Lehman employees and 251 were from Nomura.

- NZPA