Lawsuit alleges BofA ran ‘bro’s club’
Female director says bank misled trading partners
A female Bank of America executive has filed a federal lawsuit accusing the nation’s largest bank of misleading trading partners, discriminating against her based on gender and condoning a “bro’s club” workplace with “all-male sycophants.”
Megan Messina, 42, a managing director and co-head of the bank’s structured credit products business, alleged she was forced to take a leave from her job in April after she had repeatedly complained about unlawful trading practices and unfair work and pay treatment she received.
“In essence, BofA is punishing the victim by excluding her from work in a real and visible way,” Messina charged in the 41-page New York City federal court complaint filed Monday.
“We take all allegations of inappropriate behavior seriously and investigate them thoroughly,” BofA said in a statement.
According to the lawsuit, Bank of America improperly traded ahead of Citibank’s internal investing group — known as frontrunning — on March 2016 transactions involving collateralized loan obligations. Messina raised objections to a superior but was told “he did not care what she thought,” the lawsuit alleged.
Additionally, bond giant Pimco complained in 2015 after Bank of America’s head of rates trading altered trading blotter data to “cover up his material lies and misrepresentations” in earlier conversations with Pimco about prices, the lawsuit charged.
Separately, the lawsuit alleged Messina, a single mother of three, was subjected to illegal gender discrimination “from day 1” after she assumed her latest Bank of America position in February 2015. In her first conversation with her new boss, he told her, “I don’t understand what you do,” and asked, “Have you colored your hair?” and “Have your eyes always been that blue?” the lawsuit charged. The superior “has a long history of endearing himself exclusively to men” in a “BrosOnly Club,” the lawsuit alleged.
Messina learned she and other women were paid less than male employees who had equivalent jobs and experience, and sometimes lesser performance, the lawsuit charged. Her 2015 bonus totaled $1.55 million, far less than the $5.5 million awarded to the male co-head of her department, the lawsuit claimed.
In all, Messina contended she was due $8.25 million for underpayment. The bank, however, informed her Sunday “that in exchange of an enhanced severance package of $500,000 she can leave the bank without recourse to the wrongs perpetrated on her,” the lawsuit alleged. Instead, she filed the discrimination lawsuit, which also accused the bank of violating whistleblower protection requirements.