Finance Brief: The case of the vanishing sex discrimination suits, a power player passes & more

THE VANISHING: More than 60 percent of U.K. sex discrimination cases over the past 2.5 years never made it to court, thus avoiding the public eye, according to a Bloomberg analysis. In the finance sector, that percentage is above 75 percent, with suits against the likes of Barclays, HSBC and JPMorgan Chase & Co. vanishing before hitting the courts as money is exchanged for silence [Bloomberg].

A GENDER BIAS SUIT PREVAILS: Despite the scary stats above, banker Stacey Macken actually won a gender bias suit against her employer, BNP Paribas. She sued the bank’s London office on the basis of unequal pay, seeking about $5 million. She alleged she was paid significantly less than a male counterpart because of her gender and also said she faced sexual harassment. While the harassment claims were dismissed, a judge upheld her discrimination claims. It’s not clear how much she will get in compensation [Guardian].

A POWER PLAYER PASSES: Elaine La Roche, a Wall Street power broker who flourished in the ’90s investment banking world among a sea of men, died Aug. 25 at 70 years old. During her 22-year career at Morgan Stanley, La Roche ascended from administrative associate to managing director at a time when less than 10 percent of partners and managing directors among leading securities firms were female, the New York Times reported. “Trading-room culture and intensity is not gender specific,” La Roche told the Times in a 1996 profile that touched on her well-known penchant for profanity. “It’s O.K. for a guy to slam the phone down on the trading floor…Since I left the trading floor I have tempered my colorful language” [NYT].