This is the second time Stacey Macken has taken legal action against BNP Paribas – and the first time, she won. This time, the target is manager Frederic Zorzi, who Macken says has cut the bonuses of women working at the bank to, with that amount, increase the bonuses of men.
In 2019, Stacey Macken, a brokerage services manager, won a court case after proving that she was paid significantly less than her male colleagues. She was awarded £2 million (€2.37 million, at the current exchange rate) and became the first person to force a major financial institution to carry out an equal pay audit, which was published last year.
Bloomberg now reports that Macken has filed a new lawsuit against the French bank, this time not only in his own name – it reports that Frederic Zorzi, now global director of primary markets, told the bank’s managers BNP Paribas to cut 60% of bonuses for female employees in 2019 and distribute them among men in leadership roles. The information, based on evidence collected by two unidentified bank employees at the time of the events, is contained in documents that were presented last week at an employment court, Bloomberg reports.
One of these employees, who is no longer at BNP, says she saw the emails in which Zorzi gives this instruction to male leaders. Another employee is said to have confronted Zorzi, who, in response, increased her performance rating – this employee says she filed a complaint against her manager at the time.
The bank claims to have conducted an internal investigation at the time, but says it never found any such emails. “No evidence of misconduct was found and therefore no disciplinary proceedings were instituted,” the bank said in a statement, cited by Bloomberg. Frederic Zorzi did not respond to requests from the agency for comment.
Source: www.jornaldenegocios.pt
