NAB banker rewrites human rights complaint as trial looms over bullying allegations

NAB’s former head of repo trading took action after getting access to figures that showed her colleagues were earning over $350,000, an updated court claim against the bank reveals.

NAB’s former head of repo trading has amended her court claims against the bank in a bullying and human rights complaint.

A former NAB banker, who accuses the lender’s markets team of a “boys club culture” has redrawn her claims as a trial between the two sides looms.

NAB former head of repo trading Dikele Diawara, who launched court action against the bank in 2022, has redrafted her claims in a human rights complaint against the bank to argue her total employment compensation was less than her peers as well as that paid to “persons in roles with less responsibility than the applicant”.

An amended statement of claim lodged by Ms Diawara reveals the banker claims she held senior management responsibilities but was allegedly paid $20,000 less than her junior colleague senior associate Jai Papalkar.

The court document claims Ms Diawara raised the issue of her pay with NAB head of global repo David Bateman in 2017 “after the Applicant emailed Kerin Hurrell to advise that she had been given access to the remuneration details of all persons within Repo”.

Ms Diawara claims in response to this her pay was increased from $220,000 to $350,000, with the NAB banker claiming she was told this was an effort to “align” her pay with others at the bank.

NAB head of repo trading Dikele Diawara. Picture: Supplied

But the NAB banker claims others at the bank were handed bigger or equal end of year bonuses, despite her efforts to meet or exceed performance targets.

The court documents note when Ms Diawara learned others were allegedly paid more than her she “became hurt, angry and upset”.

Ms Diawara claims NAB’s trading desk was overwhelmingly male and had a boys club culture, making allegations in her earlier court claim that she was unable to speak with her senior managers and sidelined within the division.

But her revised court claims warn the bank paid her less because she was a black woman from France.

“(NAB) treated (Ms Diawara) less favourably than it treated persons of a different sex (i.e. men) in circumstances that were the same or were not materially different,” she claims.

“The less favourable treatment … was engaged in on the ground of the Applicant’s sex.”

Ms Diawara, who took on her role in the repo trading team in 2016, claims she was bullied and harassed at NAB with senior managers sidelining her and ignoring attempts to raise poor behaviour.

But the former NAB banker’s case has crawled its way through court since Ms Diawara lodged the matter in April 2022, with the matter unable to be resolved at mediation.

NAB denies Ms Diawara’s claims, including that she was menaced by her former boss Tim McCachey.

However, the bank has run the ruler over its markets team, with culture review commissioned by law firm Herbert Smith Freehills running several rounds of interviews with staff within NAB’s markets team.

Documents filed with the court also reveal NAB asked Herbert Smith Freehills to investigate allegations first revealed in The Australian that senior members of the bank’s trading arm told staff to concoct responses to a workplace satisfaction survey.

Court documents show NAB engaged Wise Workplace Solutions to run the review which found the markets team to be “friendly, inclusive, fair, caring, and supportive”.

The bank has previously claimed Ms Diawara’s allegations in the documents prepared by Petrine Costigan Lawyers. were “vague and lacking in proper particulars of what is alleged to have been provided”.

The bank has been given until April 26 to file an amended defence in the matter, with evidence due from both sides in August.

Several figures tied to the allegations at NAB have also recently left the bank, with Drew Bradford, the former head of markets resigning in March last year, soon after The Australian drew attention to his links to crypto and Web3 platform JellyC.

Corporate and Institutional Banking executive David Gall will also depart the bank on October 1, after 16 years at the bank, and will be replaced by Cathryn Carver.

Originally published as NAB banker rewrites human rights complaint as trial looms over bullying allegations