Barclays Banker Fired Over Sexual Harassment Loses $770,000 Employment Suit

A former Barclays director who was fired for sexual harassment has lost an employment lawsuit against the British bank in which he sought nearly 600,000 pounds ($770,000) in compensation, a London tribunal announced on Thursday.

Robert Record, once a senior wealth manager overseeing assets worth 580 million pounds, was dismissed in September 2020 for gross misconduct after a 14-year career.

He argued at the East London Employment Tribunal in March that female colleagues fabricated allegations against him and that his dismissal was unfair.

Record, whose claims against the bank included sex discrimination and unfair dismissal, said the most serious alleged incidents never happened, including that he inappropriately touched a female colleague.

He sued Barclays for lost past and future earnings, deferred bonuses, pension benefit and injury to feelings.

But his complaints of unfair dismissal, breach of contract and sex discrimination were rejected on July 10, according to a summary of the tribunal’s findings published on Thursday.

Barclays and Record’s lawyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Record gave evidence at the hearing in March that he and others had seen a group of women in meetings and he believed they had been “cooking up the charge sheet.”

But Barclays said Record’s dismissal was fair based on disciplinary findings including “unwelcome physical contact with a female colleague” and sexual harassment, filings showed.

Allegations against Record included excluding a female staffer from a scavenger hunt to staring at a woman’s breasts and inappropriately touching a female colleague, according to court filings. Record denied the allegations.

(Reporting by Sam Tobin; additional reporting by Kirstin Ridley; editing by Tomasz Janowski)

Photograph: Barclays bank headquarters at Canary Wharf in London. Photo credit: Bigstock

Topics Lawsuits