A saleswoman working for Macquarie Bank's US arm has alleged a co-worker tried to sexually assault her at a booze-filled company retreat that included an excursion to a strip club.
In a bombshell lawsuit filed in the US District Court in Texas on Monday, the woman claims she was overlooked for a promotion and eventually fired by the bank in retaliation for reporting the alleged incident.
A female salesperson at Macquarie Bank has alleged a co-worker attempted to sexually assault her at a corporate retreat in New Orleans.Credit: Jim Rice
The lawsuit is the second such case filed against the bank in the US recently. Khristina McLaughlin, the former head of US sales for cash equities, filed a $US40 million ($58 million) sexual harassment case in 2017, claiming she was sidelined by the bank after revealing that she had been coerced into an affair with her boss. Ms McLaughlin withdrew the case in May after the court sided with Macquarie in forcing the dispute to be settled via private arbitration.
It follows accusations by former Australian clients of a toxic alpha-male culture at the investment bank, known as the Millionaire's Factory. Macquarie denied those claims and vigorously defended the McLaughlin case.
The woman in the latest case, who lives in Houston and has asked the court to conceal her identity, was employed in mid-2016 as a salesperson in one of Macquarie's 33 US offices, on a salary of $US65,000.
At an event in New Orleans for sales workers and their managers "Macquarie encouraged its employees to drink to excess and … [the woman's] supervisor took all of the other employees under his supervision to a strip club to be ‘entertained' by topless women", the woman's complaint, filed against Macquarie Investment Management Business Trust, states.
Later that night, a co-worker attempted to sexually assault her and another made sexually suggestive comments the complaint alleges, without further detailing the attempted assault.
She alleges she reported the incident "immediately" to Macquarie, which investigated the claims and told her it found them to be credible. However, she says her co-workers were not reprimanded and her accuser was later promoted to a leadership position.
Despite being promoted on schedule the year before, the woman was not promoted after reporting the incident, costing her about $US100,000 in lost commissions.
A day after she revealed in a mediation meeting that a second employee had sexually assaulted her, she says she was fired and had her email and office access cut off. She says she was given "vague and subjective 'performance' reasons" for her firing despite sales data showing her as a top performer. The lawsuit argues she was actually fired in "unlawful retaliation".
"Like most large businesses, Macquarie professes to be deeply committed to gender diversity," the complaint states.
"For example, in its 2019 Annual Report, Macquarie claims that it has made an 'ongoing commitment to achieving gender balance at all levels of the organisation' ... Unfortunately, Macquarie's statements appear to be little more than empty platitudes. In reality, [the woman's] experience with Macquarie reveals a company no more concerned with gender equality than the men depicted in [the film] the Wolf of Wall Street."
The woman sought to resolve her firing via arbitration, as her employment contract stipulated. However, she alleges the American Arbitration Association (AAA) showed an apparent bias in favour of Macquarie by allowing the bank to file fees late, miss deadlines and have the first appointed arbitrator struck off. The AAA, which is paid by Macquarie to arbitrate its cases, was contractually required to then ask both parties to rank a list of 14 arbitrators in preference and choose five to strike out. The AAA had to use the first mutually agreed preference. Instead, the woman's seventh preference was chosen.
She has requested that the US District Court issue an order compelling the AAA to follow proper procedure for selecting an arbitrator. An initial pretrial conference has been set for January 27.
The woman's lawyer, Charles A. Sturm, declined to comment on Thursday.
In a statement, Macquarie said it "takes any allegation of workplace impropriety extremely seriously. In this particular case, we have a very different view of the underlying events, which Macquarie investigated in a full and timely manner.
"This motion is limited to the selection of an AAA arbitrator, and the tactics being used by the complainant's attorney are unfortunate and inappropriate given both parties had agreed to arbitration of the underlying claims."