HSBC Holdings Plc was sued for unfair dismissal by an equity derivatives trader who was fired for sending client data to his personal Yahoo! Inc. e-mail address.
“The data was confidential and key to the business,” Lebigot said. She called Lazimy’s request for 2.3 million euros ($2.6 million) “absurd” for someone who had worked at the bank for less than six years.
Fired traders routinely turn to specialist labor courts
throughout Europe in a bid to recoup lost bonuses and rehabilitate
tarnished reputations. In London last week, a Citigroup Inc.
foreign-exchange trader who was suspended while on maternity leave
won her employment suit against the bank
Lazimy’s lawyer, Jamila El Berry, said the e-mail incident
was “an excuse” to fire him, which adds to the harassment he suffered
after refusing to transfer from Paris to London amid a restructuring
within the bank.
El Berry said her client didn’t breach of professional
secrecy as the document never got into any outsider’s hands. The
spreadsheet was widely available within the bank, even to interns, and a
police report found the attachment “was damaged and unusable,” she
said.
Banks are under growing pressure to secure their data after
high-profile cyber attacks against JPMorgan Chase & Co. and HSBC led
to the
loss of millions of customer records. One of the most severe risks
for a data breach comes from employees, who might unwittingly upload a
virus or be blackmailed into helping an attacker.
A spokesman for HSBC in Paris declined to immediately comment.
El Berry said other Paris traders who refused to move to
London were also pressured by the bank. Lazimy went from being praised
by management and rising to the position of director to getting negative
evaluations, a salary freeze, no bonuses and a reduction to his
responsibilities, she told the tribunal.
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