GERMANY: Dresdner Faces Discrimination Suit

A group of female employees on Monday filed a $1.4 billion discrimination suit Monday against Germany's Dresdner Bank AG, claiming women are denied equal pay and promotions at the investment bank.

The lawsuit, filed in the Southern District of New York, claims that women aren't allowed to advance to senior levels Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein, the bank's securities unit. About 1% of women who work in its Capital Markets Division are managing directors, compared with 15% of their 1,700 male counterparts, according to the complaint, which is seeking class-action status.

The suit, in which the plaintiffs say women are treated as "second-class citizens," names several Dresdner units, including Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein's supervisors in New York and in London, as defendants. "Female employees are also openly treated with hostility and are denied equal terms and conditions of employment at DrKW," the suit claims.

The suit was brought by several Dresdner Kleinwort employees: Joanne Hart, a director of investor relations in International Equities Sales Group in New York; Traci Holt, a vice president in Structured Finance Group in New York; Maria Rubashkina, a vice president in Corporate Communications Department in New York; Jyoti Ruta, a director in Structured Finance Group in New York; Katherine Smith, a director in Equity Sales Trading Group in London; and Kathleen Treglia, a vice president in Fixed Income Group in New York.

A Dresdner Kleinwort spokeswoman in London said the bank's policy is to not comment on pending or threatened litigation. "DrKW fully complies with all applicable employment-related laws and is confident that any claims to the contrary are without merit," the spokeswoman said in a prepared statement. "DrKW intends to vigorously defend this matter."

The suit also claims inappropriate behavior by supervisors and other male employees at Dresdner Kleinwort, including inappropriate comments, such as a supervisor describing one plaintiff as "the Pamela Anderson of trading," and others pressuring another female executive to leave a gathering celebrating the closing of a "major deal," so that male employees and client representatives could go to a strip club.

In the complaint, one female executive said salesmen on the fixed-income desk in New York have openly commented about how they chose female junior hires based on appearance and that they wished to have "eye candy" in the office, while another said a male managing director in New York routinely brought prostitutes to the office during the lunch hour.

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