A top City lawyer is seeking a record £13m after winning a sex discrimination and harassment tribunal.
Gill Switalski – once named one of the legal world’s ‘Hot 100’ – said she was subjected to 18 months of harassment at the hands of City fund manager F&C Asset Management.
The 51-year-old quit her £140,000-a-year job as head of legal affairs following bullying over her working hours and that she was she treated less favourably than a male colleague with a special needs child. Switalski has one young son with cerebral palsy and another who suffers from Asperger’s syndrome.
An employment tribunal ruled that Switalski be awarded compensation over her claims that she was undermined, undervalued, bullied and marginalised by her former employer.
Ronnie Fox, principal at Fox Solicitors, said: “I am sure that those who drafted the sex discrimination legislation never envisaged claims of this magnitude.
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“I question whether employment tribunals are equipped to make the complex loss of earnings and injury to feelings’ calculations required to support awards of anything like this amount.”
The company said it would be seeking an appeal.
