Banker wins £15m for 'ugly' dismissal

A TOP Wall Street executive has won £15.5m in damages from banking group UBS in one of the largest sex discrimination awards to an individual.

Laura Zubulake, 44, a former director of the bank's Asian shares sales desk in New York, sued the Swiss financial giant after being told by a male executive she was too 'old and ugly and she can't do the job'. She was fired in 2001 after two years with the firm.

A jury in Manhattan decided she should receive £4.8m in compensation and a further £10.7m in punitive damages. Ms Zubulake said she was 'gratified and relieved' by the verdict and hoped it would encourage 'all women on Wall Street who experience similar things'.

UBS, Europe's largest bank, argued that she was not discriminated against because she was a woman but because she 'had performance problems' and was not a team player.

'She did not improve and she didn't even acknowledge that there was a problem that she needed to address,' the bank's lawyer argued.

The jury believed Ms Zubulake's version of events. During her evidence in the three-week trial, she said she was 'appalled' to have been invited by a male superior to a strip club in Boston.

She also said she was belittled by her boss in front of colleagues and denied lucrative client accounts. Ms Zubulake also said she had been discriminated against by being excluded from events to which the firm's clients had been invited. She said they included 'more than one baseball game' and two golf outings.

She claimed that trips to strip clubs were on company expenses. She said: 'One of my colleagues was expensing a client outing to Scores' - a strip club in New York - to which she was not invited. She said she was fired because she complained to US employment regulators.

Another former employee said she had heard a supervisor call Ms Zubulake 'old' and 'ugly'.

UBS is to appeal against the judgment. Spokesman Kris Kagel said: 'We regard the amount awarded as excessive and will now move to set aside the verdict.'

It is rare for a discrimination case against a Wall Street firm to end in a jury verdict. Most are resolved through arbitration or settled. There has been a flood of similar cases in recent years on both sides of the Atlantic.

While similar sex discrimination cases are on the rise in Britain, damages have been much lower. Schroders was forced to pay City analyst Julie Bower £1.4m in 2002 for being paid less than equivalent male colleagues.

Sex bias in the Square Mile

LONDON'S Square Mile has also been hit by 'Sexism in the City' allegations.

Julie Bower v Schroder Securities
The share analyst was awarded £1.4m in 2002 after she received a bonus of £25,000 compared with male colleagues who received up to £650,000.

Elizabeth Weston v Merrill Lynch
The lawyer was given a £1m settlement after a male colleague made remarks about her breasts and sex life at the office Christmas party.

Kate Bleasdale v Sinclair Montrose Healthcare
She received £2.2m after claiming male boardroom colleagues failed to back her.