Ex-Morgan Stanley banker seeks bonus

A former Morgan Stanley deal-maker in Paris told an employment tribunal that the lender unfairly withheld $1.5 million in deferred pay a year after he raked in more than $100 million in fees while advising Patrick Drahi on a $23 billion acquisition.

Bernard Mourad told judges Monday that the New York-based bank used an incentive plan to deny him a bonus he earned at Morgan Stanley France before he left to work for Drahi in 2015. Lawyers for the bank countered that Mourad knew the compensation scheme was designed to “reward loyalty” tied to continued presence at the firm.

That’s “totally illegal under French law” if no express consent was granted, Mourad’s lawyer, Eric Manca, replied during the hearing at the Paris employment tribunal. “It’s a bit like saying that your salary for July will only be paid if you’re still working at the company four years later.”

Mourad, who left Drahi’s Altice Media Group last year to take a role on Emmanuel Macron’s presidential campaign, is seeking damages and the deferred pay for work he performed between 2012 and 2014.

The Mourad lawsuit was filed in 2015, shortly after he quit Morgan Stanley to become chairman of Altice, which owns news outlets such as French newspaper