Sexist jibes lead to £75k payout
A CITY executive whose boss told her “women should stay at home and cook” has won a £75,000 payout.
Lana Sinelnikova, 37, had accused chief executive Alex Pusco of sex discrimination while working at trading company ActivTrades.
Ms Sinelnikova, who earned more than £100,000 a year, claimed he also showed staff a “degrading” picture of a woman wearing skimpy clothing posing with a car while declaring that “sex sells”. A tribunal heard Ms Sinelnikova had been suspended from her role as head of compliance for gross misconduct after allegedly taking a work trip to Dubai with a senior colleague she was in a relationship with, while she was off sick.
But the panel concluded that the firm had been trying to force her out and used the trip as “leverage” to fire her.
When she complained about her treatment, the company embarked on a campaign of “concerted and malicious action” against her, the tribunal heard.
This included wrongly claiming she had committed a criminal offence, it was said.
The hearing, in east London, was told Ms Sinelnikova had joined the London-based trading firm in 2011.
The tribunal heard her role was to make sure the company’s financial dealings were legal and to raise Suspicious Activity Reports if she had concerns. It was said that by 2017 there was growing frustration among senior management that she was obstructing deals by flagging up potential breaches in the regulations.
In December 2017, Miss Sinelnikova issued a grievance against the company accusing them of sex discrimination and potential criminal offences relating to their compliance with financial conduct laws.
In her complaint, she recalled an incident at the firm’s Bulgarian office. She said: “Mr Pusco stated that ‘Women should stay at home and cook’, in the context of complaining about the length of maternity leave in Bulgaria.”
She resigned in February 2018. The tribunal found the firm guilty of victimisation. Ms Sinelnikova was awarded £76,510 in compensation, including £40,000 damages for injury to feelings.
ActivTrades was ordered to pay a £5,000 penalty for repeated breaches of employment law.