Point72 settles suit alleging discrimination, inequality

STAMFORD — Point72 Asset Management has settled a lawsuit that had alleged widespread gender discrimination and inequality at the Steven Cohen-led hedge fund, one of the most high-profile cases involving a financial services firm in recent years.

Stamford-based Point72 said in a statement this week that plaintiff and former employee Lauren Bonner’s complaint, which was filed in February 2018, had been resolved to the parties’ “mutual satisfaction.” It declined to disclose the settlement’s terms or specify when the agreement was reached.

Martin Scheinman, the case’s third-party arbitrator, said that

Point72 and Bonner “have resolved the claims amicably prior to a decision being issued.”

“There were no adverse findings against Steve (Cohen) or P72,”

Point72 said in its statement. The firm denied Bonner’s allegations. Cohen, a Greenwich resident, was named as a defendant in the complaint, but not personally accused of misconduct.

In response to an inquiry from Hearst Connecticut Media, Bonner’s attorneys, Jeanne Christensen and Michael Willemin of Manhattan-based Wigdor LLP, referred to a Wall Street Journal article about the settlement. They declined to provide any additional comment.

Significant case

The litigation emerged during the rise of the MeToo movement, when unprecedented numbers of women across a range of industries were going public with accounts of workplace abuse and inequality.

Filed in federal court in New York, Bonner’s complaint described Point72 as a hostile environment in which women were frequently harassed and belittled.

Female employees, at times, earned 50 cents for every dollar made by their male colleagues and they were routinely overlooked or denied opportunities to progress

while male counterparts with equal or fewer credentials advanced, the suit alleged.

In addition to Cohen and the firm as a whole, then-President Doug Haynes was also named as a defendant. The complaint accused Haynes of harassing female colleagues by writing a vulgar word on a whiteboard in his office. It also said that female employees openly shared the view that as long as Haynes served as president, “women will be paid less.”

Haynes resigned from Point72 in March 2018.

Among other allegations, Bonner’s lawsuit asserted that among the firm’s 125 portfolio managers “it is believed” that all but one were men and that there was only one woman among its approximately 30 managing directors.

For months after Bonner filed the lawsuit, lawyers for the two sides argued about the appropriate venue for the complaint.

In September 2018, however, they agreed to move the case out of the courts to arbitration, which is a framework frequently used to resolve labor disputes. It is unclear why Bonner and her attorneys agreed to that change after earlier opposing such action.

Scheinman cleared Haynes of the allegation pertaining to the obscenity, but he did not make findings on other issues related to Haynes because the case was settled, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Haynes said in a statement that “the legal process has now concluded with no finding that I was guilty of any of these claims.”

After he left Point72, Haynes sued Bonner and Wigdor for alleged defamation, but the case was dismissed earlier this year.

In Wigdor, Bonner picked a firm known for aggressively pursuing lawsuits against major companies. Among other cases, it represented a male employee in a harassment complaint against Westport-based Bridgewater Associates, the world’s largest hedge fund. That case was settled in 2016. Wigdor is also representing several women who have alleged age discrimination at the NY1 cable channel, which is owned by Stamford-based Charter Communications.

Unresolved questions

Before and since Bonner filed her lawsuit, Point72 officials have said they have been working to increase the number of women in the firm.

Women accounted for 40 percent of the firm’s 2019 summer academy class and 25 percent of its full-time academy class, training programs for Point 72 recruits, according to a Hedge Fund Journal profile of Jaimi Goodfriend, Point72’s head of investment professional development.

They comprised 30 percent of the acceptances in the 2018 summer internship program and 20 percent in 2017.

In total, more than 1,500 people work for Point72, across a number of offices worldwide, including its headquarters at 72 Cummings Point Road, in Stamford’s Waterside section, and its offices at 55 Hudson Yards in Manhattan.

Point72 declined to comment on how many of its employees are women.

Bonner, who worked as head of talent analytics, has left

Point72. Her LinkedIn profile indicates that her four-year stint with the firm ended last month.

Cohen earlier this month reached an agreement to buy the New York Mets. The deal values the franchise between about $2.4 billion and $2.5 billion.

Cohen needs to secure the approval of 23 of the other 29 owners of Major League Baseball teams for the deal to be finalized.