New York hedge fund Advent Capital Management LLC subjected a former junior investment associate to “relentless, egregious discrimination” and then fired her for complaining about it to the firm’s top executives, she alleged in a lawsuit.
Male traders and portfolio managers at the firm ranked women on a 1-10 scale, called them demeaning names and classified them according to whether men would marry, kill or have sex with them, Courtney Robb said in the complaint, filed Monday in federal court in Manhattan.
Robb said she complained to Advent’s former chief operating officer and was later fired after a closed-door meeting in which the firm’s president and chief investment officer, Tracy Maitland, excused the behavior as “locker room talk.”
“Just weeks after engaging in protected speech about discrimination to Maitland himself and the COO, Advent fired Ms. Robb without any explanation,” according to the complaint.
A representative for Advent didn’t immediately have a comment on the suit.
The lawsuit names Advent and Maitland as defendants and seeks an unspecified sum in damages. Robb is represented by the law office of Douglas Wigdor, a New York employment lawyer.
The case is Robb v. Advent Capital Management LLC, 20-cv-3832, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).
--With assistance from Gillian Tan.
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.