A broker at a subsidiary of interdealer broker TP ICAP Group Plc sued her employer and Citigroup Inc., alleging that each firms didn’t protect her from a trader on the Wall Street bank who she said harassed her for years.
Christine O’Reilly, a New York-based worker of ICAP, alleged in a lawsuit Monday that she was forced to place her company’s profits above her own well-being and endured relentless harassment and unwanted advances from the Citigroup trader, a valued client.
TP ICAP said in an announcement that it’s “the firm’s policy not to comment on pending litigation.” A Citigroup spokesman declined to comment. Seth Redniss, an attorney for O’Reilly, declined to comment.
O’Reilly is suing ICAP for alleged discrimination and maintaining a hostile work environment, based on the lawsuit filed Monday in Manhattan. She also claimed Citigroup didn’t properly supervise her then-employee, who isn’t named as a defendant within the suit, and didn’t take motion against him after O’Reilly complained on to a supervisor on the bank.
In one instance, O’Reilly claims that when she rejected the advances of trader Benjamin Waters, she threatened to scale back Citigroup’s business to ICAP. The suit calls Waters a “non-party co-conspirator.” The Citigroup representative said the workers named within the suit are not any longer with the bank.
Waters declined to comment. The grievance describes him as a “high-profile Citi trader” on the bank’s Delta One MSCI desk in London who had the ability to funnel billions of dollars in volume to ICAP.
O’Reilly claims Waters repeatedly called her outside of labor hours, demanded photos of her and, in a single case, attempted to enter her London hotel room despite her refusal, the lawsuit says.
As a part of her lawsuit, O’Reilly claims her ICAP supervisor, Janie McCathie, told her to “play the game” and put up with the Citigroup trader’s behavior because he was a giant business generator. O’Reilly said she was expected to tolerate and flirt with the trader even after she rejected and reported his advances.
McCathie, who is known as as a defendant within the lawsuit, declined to comment.
O’Reilly, who based on the lawsuit joined ICAP as an intern in 2013, is looking for compensation for lost wages, emotional distress, legal fees and other damages.
