Six female employees of investment bank Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein have filed a $1.4bn (£800m) sex discrimination claim for unfair and abusive treatment.
The lawsuit alleges that the women were consistently passed over for senior-level jobs in the bank’s London and New York offices, were paid significantly less than their male colleagues and were made to work in a hostile environment.
The women claimed that their male colleagues would boast of visiting a strip club, bring prostitutes to the office during their lunch hour and would subject their female counterparts to sexist remarks.
Women were hired as “eye candy” and one was referred to as the “Pamela Anderson of trading”, the women said.
US investment bank Morgan Stanley paid $54m (£30.7m) in July 2004 to settle claims that it discriminated against women through pay rises and promotions, had excluded them from company events, and subjected them to lewd behaviour.