高盛因前高管陪产假歧视案被英国仲裁庭判赔145万英镑

Ex-Goldman executive awarded £1.45mn after paternity leave ‘stigma’
A former Goldman Sachs executive who lost his job after he took six months off work to look after his newborn baby has been awarded £1.45mn in compensation for sex discrimination and unfair dismissal.
Jon Reeves, who was deputy global head of the bank’s compliance “control room” in London, lost his job in 2022 when he was due to return from six months of parental leave.
A tribunal in London previously found in Reeves’ favour and in a ruling on Wednesday it awarded him £1.45mn, in part because it found he suffered “stigma” across London’s financial sector as a result of the episode.
Goldman had told Reeves, who had worked for the bank since 2007, that he had been selected for dismissal due to a “business need” and his “relative performance”.
However, Reeves contended the stated reasons were a pretext and that he was being penalised because he took extended leave as a new father. He took the bank to an employment tribunal in 2022.
Prospective new employers hesitated to take him on, and one abruptly cancelled interviews after managers circulated a media report about his tribunal claim, according to the judgment.
During the case, Reeves said a manager repeatedly shouted at him to “figure it out” after he raised concerns about childcare. The manager denied shouting.
The alleged comments were made during Covid-19 lockdown after Reeves told his superiors he was struggling to work from home and look after his first child.
Reeves also told the tribunal that managers looked at him unfavourably for not responding to an email for 24 hours while he was driving to Cornwall on his first holiday with his wife and newborn baby.
The tribunal heard that Goldman’s parental leave policy was 26 weeks within 12 months of the birth or legal adoption of a child, as long as that took place while the employee was at the bank.
The tribunal previously found that the bank’s “failure to adopt any semblance of a fair process was so thoroughgoing that its process was unfair in every respect”.
The award also reflected injury to feelings, lost earnings and a penalty against Goldman for failing to follow fair procedures.
However, the tribunal applied a deduction as it concluded there was a 50 per cent likelihood he would have been made redundant anyway.
Jo Keddie at law firm Forsters, which represented Reeves, said the “judgment emphasises the fact that stigma damages are not theoretical”.
She added: “For senior professionals in regulated industries, litigation can have profound career implications and this case demonstrates that the Tribunal will recognise this where supported by clear and compelling evidence.”
Goldman said in a statement that it was “a market leader in paid parental leave and encourages all working parents regardless of gender to take the full 26 weeks’ paid leave offered to them. We strongly disagree with this decision.”