BNP to Pay Banker Fired Years After Sexual Harassment Claim

(Bloomberg) -- BNP Paribas SA must pay a senior banker it fired following a newspaper report he’d demanded sexual favors from a female colleague, a half a decade after the French bank let him off with just a warning and then promoted him.

The u-turn to dismiss Aurelien Gressier at the height of the Me Too movement in 2017 came too late and violated French disciplinary rules, the Paris court of appeals said in a judgment last month. Five years earlier, the bank only issued him a warning him when a female colleague complained.

“The behavior that took place in 2012 already gave rise to discipline and can’t be further punished,” the judges wrote. They dismissed BNP’s other arguments and ordered the lender pay Gressier nearly 300,000 euros ($327,300) to make up for his unfair dismissal.

It’s the second time in recent months that BNP has found itself at the center of a dispute that raised questions about its workplace culture. In a landmark London ruling on the gender pay gap, a broker in February was awarded 2 million pounds ($2.6 million), a victory that may encourage a wave of other women to come forward.

In the Gressier case, the former banker lost his initial labor lawsuit before winning on appeal.

Zero tolerance

BNP said that it “does not tolerate any behavior contrary to the respect and dignity of the individual” and has measures in place to prevent, detect and combat any form of harassment or discrimination. It said that it’s planning to appeal the Gressier ruling at France’s top court.

A lawyer for Gressier didn’t respond to requests for comment. He is quoted in BNP’s dismissal letter as acknowledging that his remarks and behavior were “inappropriate” and  “sincerely” regretting it, according to the March 17 ruling.

The Liberation newspaper article, which identified him as Aurelien G., reported that he barged into the office of his female colleague soon after her arrival in Hong Kong in 2011 and demanded a sex act. The headline of the article containing the allegations is published in the appeal ruling.

Among various other incidents, the French news report mentions a May 2012 meeting when Gressier made an inappropriate remark about her skirt and then touched her waistline.

Shortly after, she alerted BNP’s human resources department and says she was given assurances by local human resources staff that Gressier’s career was “dead.”

Yet instead of firing him, BNP issued Gressier a warning and he was able to move up the ranks and take on a role as a managing director three years later in Singapore, his LinkedIn profile shows.

It’s only after the publication of the Liberation article at the end of 2017, that BNP fired Gressier.

“Your presence within the group compromises the mental and physical security of employees as well as the interests and the proper functioning of the bank,” BNP said in his dismissal letter.

The bank said in the letter that it had to dismiss Gressier because the article created such a stir among female employees and “triggered a serious crisis within the entire company at a worldwide level.” According to BNP, many employees expressed a “feeling of insecurity and unease” because Gressier was still part of its Asia-Pacific investment banking arm.

The French bank added that another unidentified female employee came forward in 2017, after the Liberation article was published, to complain about Gressier’s inappropriate behavior during after-work drinks in Singapore.

In last month’s ruling the appeal judges pointed out that BNP only had itself to blame for the stir the news article caused, given that the internal distress expressed by female employees was due to the bank’s initial decision to keep him on the payroll.

The court also dismissed the 2017 allegations -- which Gressier disputes -- as imprecise and unverified. The judges said the bank only provided a written account by a person who wasn’t witness to the scene, with no details about the allegations or the date they occurred.

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