HSBC Appeals Decision Reinstating Female Banker’s Discrimination Claim

HSBC on Thursday appealed a tribunal’s decision to reinstate a female, senior investment banker’s lawsuit that alleges the bank victimized and discriminated against her when it did not hire her for a senior sales position in 2018.

Carmen Chevalier-Firescu, 41, sued the bank in an employment tribunal in 2020, alleging she was not appointed as the head of HSBC’s London derivatives sales team for hedge funds partly because she had sued her former employer, Barclays BARC.L, for making her redundant after she returned from maternity leave.

Her case was dismissed by a tribunal but reinstated on appeal in February. HSBC told the Court of Appeal on Thursday that her claims should be dismissed in part because she had filed them after the standard three-month window.

The lawsuit is a rare example of an employment claim against a prospective, rather than current, employer.

HSBC declined to comment.

HSBC’s lawyer, Diya Sen Gupta, told the court that Chevalier-Firescu delayed suing HSBC because she was worried about the impact it would have on her job prospects.

But her lawyer, Oliver Segal, said she only learned in 2020 why she was not hired through a formal request for personal data held by the bank.

That yielded documentation showing HSBC’s hiring managers rejected her in part because of her lawsuit against Barclays.

Chevalier-Firescu and Barclays reached a settlement in 2019 and she received a seven-figure settlement, a clean reference and a ban on the bank disparaging her, according to the February judgment.

She also discovered that her former Barclays boss, a Lebanese man, gave negative feedback. An HSBC manager told her in 2020 this made her harder to hire because of senior, Lebanese male managers employed at HSBC.

Chevalier-Firescu is seeking undisclosed damages. The Court of Appeal will publish a judgment later.

(Reporting by Kirstin Ridley; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)