Ex-StanChart Lawyer Fights Bank Over Wolf-Whistles, ‘Hairgate’

(Bloomberg) --

Standard Chartered Plc chief Bill Winters has said that the bank, plagued by allegations of misconduct, must overhaul its culture. Now it’s battling a former lawyer in court who said she suffered from sex and race discrimination.

Sobara Simon-Hart, who worked in the bank’s financial markets group, says that she was subjected to wolf-whistling and racism from colleagues inside and outside the Dubai office. On one occasion, she said that a co-worker in the compliance team told her he could do what he liked after he stroked her hair without consent in a bar. Managers failed to follow up, she said, and dismissively dubbed the incident “Hairgate.”

The bank won the first round in the litigation last week after a London judge ruled that her case can’t be heard in a U.K. employment tribunal because the alleged misconduct happened in Dubai. Simon-Hart plans to continue her claim and says she’s now considering suing the lender for breach of contract in the U.K. High Court.

The allegations come as Standard Chartered attempts to move on from a litany of concerns about misconduct -- especially in its compliance and legal teams. Since his appointment in 2015, Winters has repeatedly chastised managers for flouting ethics rules and acting as if they were “above the law.”

Negative Impact

Standard Chartered’s actions “have deliberately and calculatedly had a profoundly negative impact on my mental, financial and overall well-being and has entirely disrupted my life and the life of my daughter and our future prospects,” Simon-Hart said in a court filing.

A Standard Chartered spokesman said the bank "strongly refuted" the claims, "which we believe to be without merit." Simon-Hart was employed in the United Arab Emirates and her employment had no connection to the U.K., he said.

The legal operations have been a problem for the lender. Since Winters’ arrival, the head of anti-bribery and corruption left after the London-based company probed allegations he had altered the performance review of a subordinate he was having an affair with, and the global compliance chief stepped down after an investigation concluded that his language and behavior toward colleagues was inappropriate, according to a Bloomberg story in June 2018.

Simon-Hart, who was suffering from depression, was summarily fired after taking extended sick leave in October 2018 after four years at Standard Chartered in Dubai. In the country’s special economic zone, employers can fire people if they take more than 60 working days of sick leave in a year if no disability is found. But she said, it meant that her illness got worse.

‘Hairgate’

The incident at the center of her complaint took place at a Dubai bar in late 2014.

At an after-work drinks, Simon-Hart said a compliance officer reached out to stroke her hair. When she objected, she said he made a comment “to the effect that he could do what he liked as he was effectively my boss.”

She said she didn’t raise a complaint immediately, hoping that the issue could be resolved informally.

“Being a new member, I wanted the matter to disappear and no fuss made about it," Simon-Hart said in her filings. "I was still finding my feet and did not feel empowered to take any action."

The compliance official was promoted, she said. He has since left Standard Chartered and now works at another bank in the United Arab Emirates.

While she received an initial apology from another executive who witnessed the behavior, Standard Chartered attempted to quickly close the case, Simon-Hart said. A subsequent meeting with managers about the events in the bar was recorded, she said.

“It became clear to me that the meeting...duped me into making a statement that I wanted no further action to be taken," she said.

"I later discovered this incident had been widely discussed, and dubbed ‘Hairgate’ by senior members of the legal team,” she said.

Another employee wolf-whistled at her during much of 2016 -- a claim a manager expressed “disbelief” about, Simon-Hart said.

The lawyer, who’s Black British, had also made a claim of race discrimination. In her filings, she described a lunch at the popular Zuma restaurant in Dubai’s financial district, where a colleague expressed her delight at being back in civilization and among white people. She said that her complaint was probed and "partially upheld."

The comments "created a humiliating, degrading, hostile and offensive workplace," she said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Jonathan Browning in London at jbrowning9@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Anthony Aarons at aaarons@bloomberg.net, Christopher Elser, Ambereen Choudhury

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