Laura Zubulake just won twenty-nine million dollars in a sex discrimination case against Europe's biggest bank, UBS. The bank will try to have the verdict set aside as excessive.
I have never worked in the financial services industry, but based on my limited knowledge Wall Street seems to be a fairly crappy place for uppity women. The rules of the game sometimes include trips to strippers and nights out spent drinking with the boys. What is a woman to do? If she goes along to a stripclub how is she going to feel? Like a live turkey watching a Thanksgiving dinner being devoured? And if she doesn't go or isn't invited to these jaunts, how will she stay informed about what's going on in the firm?
So court cases like Zubulake's seem to be necessary. This case was made even uglier by the fact that
Zubulake's case got a boost when Manhattan Federal Court Judge Shira Scheindlin sanctioned UBS for destroying E-mails related to Zubulake. The jury was told of the bank's action. Only some E-mails were recovered, including one in which a UBS exec advocated firing Zubulake after she filed the EEOC complaint.
Tsk, tsk. Better cover up the tracks more carefully next time, UBS.
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Link via renatejns.