A former graduate banker at UBS has blasted an outside legal review at the Swiss bank following a rape allegation she made against one of her bosses.
A woman at the center of a scandal at the London arm of UBS' investment bank has spoken out about a review by a Fleet Street law firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, in an statement to finews.com on Monday.
The probe had given Zurich-based UBS the all-clear over its handling of the woman's claim last fall. However, it suggested the Swiss bank improve, including by expanding its whistleblowing channels and boosting diversity and inclusion efforts to include sexual misconduct cases.
City Litmus Test
The case has become a closely-watched litmus test over how the City handles harassment cases, against the backdrop of a broad reckoning with cases of mobbing or other misconduct that have long run rampant in the culture of investment banking.
«I worry that the bank, and its shareholders, have paid a lot of money to a law firm which, for all intents and purposes, has added weight to excuses and chosen to shut their eyes to UBS' flawed misconduct processes,» the woman, who is no longer with UBS but remains in investment banking, wrote.
UBS Whitewashed?
The woman alleges that Freshfields effectively whitewashed UBS by overlooking evidence: the law firm had not interviewed her graduate colleagues at UBS, many of whom «felt intimidated and coerced» by the human resources experts looking into her claim.
The woman had previously recounted reporting to human resources at UBS that she believed she had had non-consensual sex, after waking up in a stranger’s house next to her boss following a company drinks event.
She has said that UBS in its investigation of events had asked her friends whether she was a «one-night stand» type of person. Some time later, the manager was suspended.
Highest Regulatory Scrutiny
The matter has reached the highest echelons of both UBS and the U.K. regulator: the woman appealed to Andrea Orcel, the Swiss bank's head of investment banking until September. It has also drawn the attention of Financial Conduct Authority head Megan Butler, who has promised to address harassment in the City.
The woman said that she made Orcel (pictured below), another UBS executive, and the Freshfields partner handling the case aware of her concerns over the law firm's independence, shortly before the investment banker left for Santander six weeks ago.
«I trusted them to be truthful about the evidence they hold, so that this situation can be avoided in future. It was an opportunity for meaningful change, not complicity,» she said.
UBS said it had no further comment on the Freshfields probe, which was wrapped up last week, «beyond the confirmation last week that we provided the independent report to our regulator and that this report concluded that there were no fundamental errors in the investigation process and that the investigation team sought to conduct the investigation fairly.»
